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Address in Reply to Her Majesty’s Most Gracious Speech

My Lords, I, too, look forward to working with the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, and I am delighted to see that he has the sense of humour that we all need to do our job in your Lordships’ House. We come to today’s debate after a general election, the results of which had much for my party to be happy about. We were the only party substantially to increase our percentage of the vote, and we increased our representation in the House of Commons by about 20   per cent. In stark contrast to the other parties, one of which has a leader who has jumped before he was pushed, and the other which has a leader who is being pushed but will not jump, we have a leader with whom we are very happy. He spent the election talking about our positive policies for public services and giving credit to other politicians with whom we do not agree for being conscientious about their own beliefs, even if we think that they are mistaken. I am particularly pleased that he talked about the principles of freedom, fairness and trust that underpin our political agenda. I am particularly unhappy that much of the election was fought on managerial issues such as school discipline and clean hospitals, rather than on the principle of what sort of country we want to live in. No policy area affects the sort of country in which we want to live in the future more than education. Therefore, questions about what is delivered, in what quality, how it is delivered, by whom it is delivered and to whom they are accountable are crucial to that wider agenda. I will focus my remarks on education, and my noble friend Lady Barker in winding up the debate will focus on health. In education terms, I want to live in the sort of country where early disadvantage is evened out and every child and every teacher has the opportunity to fulfil his or her full potential. By developing good teachers and good school leadership, we provide the means by which our children can achieve and enjoy their school years. Children and their teachers are only two sides of the triangle of educational delivery. A lot has been said by the Government and the Official Opposition about parent power. Parents are the most influential factor in the development and happiness of every child. We on these Benches would like to see the state as an enabler, helping people to become expert parents as well as loving parents in the interests of their children; not interfering unless it is absolutely necessary in the interests of the child but providing high-quality services equally available to support all parents to do the most important job any of us ever has to do. There seems to be a considerable tension between the Government’s stated aim of giving parents more power and some of their recent and proposed legislation. For   example, how can parents have more power in 200 city academies when the number of parents on the governing body is being reduced from two to one, with that one appointed by the proprietor of the school? How can parents have more power when schools no longer have to hold an annual parents’ meeting if they do not want to, or issue an annual parents’ report? What do the Government mean by ““streamlining governing bodies””? How can parents have more power over the future status of the primary school that is considering becoming a foundation school, when the Government propose that that will be done in future by a simple vote of the governing body? The two parent-governors on the board can easily be outvoted. The fact is that most of the legislation that we are led to expect from the gracious Speech and the DfES press release is unnecessary. The Government took powers to expand their city academies programme only a few months ago in Part 2 of the Education Act 2005. Another example is the Government proposals for the privatisation of primary schools, for that is what foundation status really means. Why do we need more legislation for that? Section 35 of and Schedule 8 to the School Standards and Framework Act 1998 already allow it. Now is the time for the Government to focus on good practice and proper resourcing. Good implementation of legislation relies on winning hearts and minds, bringing about cultural change and really listening to those who know. We need to allow existing legislation to bed in and concentrate on good practice. I have briefly mentioned the plans for 200 more city academies. Let me say right from the outset that we on these Benches are absolutely in favour of pouring more resources, both human and financial, into failing schools or schools that face multiple challenges of deprivation and poverty. However, we do not believe that it is wise to put our schools outside local accountability on the unevaluated basis of what the Minister’s predecessor described from that Dispatch Box as an ““experiment””. Only three of the existing academies have been inspected by Ofsted so far and one, the Unity City Academy in Middlesbrough, has failed. Staff morale was low, and GCSE results were lower than the two failing schools that it replaced. There is no evidence that academies will,"““boost attainment and opportunity””," to use the Government’s own words. The Government are rightly keen on their Every Child Matters agenda, but how does putting £5 billion into 200 schools help every child? The academies programme is not a panacea for all the problems in our secondary schools. A government who was elected by 22 per cent of those eligible to vote have no mandate to give away 200 of our secondary schools to the private or voluntary sector, even if all 22 per cent had been aware that was in Labour’s manifesto, which I am sure they were not. The department’s statement says:"““New providers will enter the state system subject to parental demand, fair funding and fair admissions””." Where is the demand from parents for 95 per cent of the control over their local school to be given to someone who is prepared to put up about 5 per cent of the money for a new school? When parents realise that fact, as in Durham, they get up and fight it. Primary schools have not escaped the Government’s privatisation agenda. The sole purpose of becoming a foundation school is to have control over your own admissions. Allowing it by a simple vote of the governing body could make it difficult for a Director of Children’s Services to maintain the expected strategic oversight over the Every Child Matters agenda, with the potential for literally thousands of new admissions bodies to be set up. We in this House did a lot of work on the Ofsted elements of the last Education Bill, and now the Government are planning to tinker with it again. Opposition Peers persuaded the Government to allow parents to continue to have input into the new light-touch inspections. They needed some persuading—not a sign of a Government genuinely dedicated to giving parents real power in the education of their children. I will not say much about the proposal to allow parents more power to trigger an Ofsted inspection, except that we will need safeguards against witch hunts by a small group of parents of a head teacher whose methods they do not like. The idea that Ofsted should have the power to close a school is certainly an error. It is another step in the Government’s attempts to sideline LEAs. It should be for Ofsted to tell us what the problems are and for the LEA and the school to tell us what they are going to do about them. From these Benches, we would like to see a much more independent school inspection system under the auspices of the National Audit Office, to provide the accountability for how public money is spent, which we all believe in. I mentioned earlier that discipline in schools was on the ““shopping list”” on which parties were campaigning during the election. There is no doubt that this is a very important matter, which we have debated many times in Your Lordships’ House. Every child has a right not to have his or her education interfered with by high or low-level disruption, and every teacher has the right to do his or her job without fear of violence. There is not time to say too much about this, but it is a complex problem that requires a complex, mature approach, not a knee-jerk reaction. You can exclude children from a school, but you cannot eliminate them and make them go away. We have to do something serious about it. From these Benches our first emphasis would be on prevention; first, by providing children with a curriculum that they see as relevant to them and equipping them for the life that they will lead when they leave school. The Government have indicated their intention to adopt some of the recommendations of the Tomlinson report about 14-to-19 education, but sadly they have fallen into the trap of popularism instead of having the courage to stand up and say, ““We need to take a root-and-branch reforming look at this stage of education””. My noble friend Lady Sharp will say more about that. Services provided to children with special needs need to be improved, both in school and out. During the election I visited a number of schools and a common factor that emerged was the lack of resources to tackle the many complex needs of so many of our children. We all know that many excluded children have special needs that have not been properly addressed, despite all the best will in the world from the school. It is a matter that deeply concerns many teachers who feel they are failing these children despite their best efforts. Secondly, we give a cautious welcome to the proposal for a leadership commission of experienced heads to look at school discipline, but only if the answers to the following questions are satisfactory. Will this group be just another quango or will it be a genuine working party? Will it make all haste in gathering the best strategies that work and ensuring that this best practice is disseminated widely to the teaching body? Since this will bring the need for in-service training, will the Government provide schools with the necessary resources to enable staff to take advantage of the findings of this commission and be trained to put them into practice? If the Government are listening to the profession, that will be a refreshing change and we will support them. I will listen carefully to the Minister’s answers, or perhaps he will write to me. Thirdly, we would put into place measures to ensure that all schools have a strong management team with   coherent and consistent policies about school behaviour, backed up by the LEAs who support them and parents who are involved by the school at every stage of the process. Fourthly, we would ensure that resources are diverted into providing separate full-time appropriate education for children who have to be excluded either from their class through on-site units, or, as a very last resort, from the school through managed transfer to   another school or a full-time pupil referral unit. Tackling the matter effectively must be a priority and will have an effect not just on the children concerned and their classmates, but, as we also know from research, on the rate of youth offending. I now move to the proposals that local authorities are to have new duties to procure childcare. We will have to look at the detail. It is certainly a very important matter for the future. However, following the Children Act 2004 I have great concerns about the Government’s plans for the children’s workforce. They need to be coherent and properly funded. It is the professionals who often make the difference to a child who has problems or whose parents suffer from major challenges. There has been a regular flow of new laws, regulations, action plans and more pilots than the RAF. Yet low pay, low qualifications, high stress, high vacancy rates, a lot of temporary and agency staff and a confused qualifications structure beset the sector. We would establish a ““climbing frame”” of qualifications for people wishing to improve their skills in the childcare sector. We need to encourage all childcare professionals to study and undertake in-service training if the high quality we all want for our children is to be delivered. If the Every Child Matters agenda is to be achieved all these matters need to be addressed and I and many professionals within the sector have not seen the commitment to putting in the resources to deal with these challenges. On the teaching workforce, I draw the House’s attention to the Government’s appalling record on teachers who are qualified to teach core subjects and my party’s manifesto commitment to addressing that issue. What do the Government propose to do about it? We look forward to working with the Minister on the child contact and inter country adoption Bill, the vulnerable groups Bill and the childcare Bill. We will look carefully at the details of these Bills and will support the   Government where they are putting the welfare of the child first and foremost in the measures they are proposing. The measures also need to be workable in practice and give due weight to the child’s human rights under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. These are the principles on which we will judge them. We will also be asking questions about resources and the workforce who will have to put the new measures into practice. I already have concerns that the DfES has reduced the number staff working on inter-country adoptions even though demand is rising. Limiting the access by telephone to the four officers left behind is not an answer. How can potential adoptive parents reach them with queries if this is done? I declare an interest in that my Chinese-speaking son who lives in China has spent three years trying to adopt a Chinese child to complete his family. The whole thing had been a long drawn-out nightmare of British, not Chinese, bureaucracy. I note there will be an equality Bill and wonder whether age equality—putting children on same footing as adults in terms of their rights—will be contained in it. Will it contain measures to give children the same protection from assault as adults? There will be another asylum and immigration Bill. I trust Ministers will keep in mind the need to provide better services and protection for asylum-seeking children and use the opportunity of the Bill to make a difference. There is one particular provision that I regret is missing from the gracious Speech and that is a youth justice Bill. A draft Bill was announced in the Queen’s Speech 2004 but nothing was introduced. We badly need this Bill to make custody a last resort for juveniles and community sentences with a strong education element the norm. If the welfare of the child is put at the heart of youth justice, the Government will achieve their aim of reducing reoffending and everyone will be happy. I end by commenting that the Labour manifesto of 2005 in relation to education looks remarkably like the Conservative manifesto of 2001 and therefore my colleagues and I will have no problems in opposing certain elements of it. However, I assure the Minister that where we think he is doing the right thing he will have our enthusiastic co-operation, but where we think he is wrong he will have our vigorous opposition and we will use all the powers given to us to try and change his mind.