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Address in Reply to Her Majesty’s Most Gracious Speech

My Lords, we have had a long and wide-ranging debate on many aspects of social policy in the gracious Speech. We have heard two excellent maiden speeches, and I congratulate both of the noble Lords concerned. I am not sure what I or the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, have done to upset the   Whips’ Office that saw us chosen to come right at the end of the debate, but I confess that I am not a Liverpool fan and so I am not bothered about it. I shall concentrate my remarks on education, commenting on some things that were in the gracious Speech and some that were not. As usual, I start by declaring my interest as leader of a local authority. In the past, I have also declared an interest in that my wife was a teacher, but she has now retired. So I have appointed her as my special adviser. Her experience in education over 35 years qualifies her to give of her knowledge and expertise in that field. In his introductory speech, my noble friend rightly outlined the achievements of the Labour Government in education. Every school in my authority has received new capital investment, improving the way that schools can be run. Overall performance throughout the authority has improved markedly. Perhaps the greatest legacy—one that my noble friend did not make enough of—is the work on early years education. The Sure Start programme and other initiatives will be a legacy for this country in years to come. They give the fairest start for all during those important and formative years. There are some aspects of policy where perhaps the Government, in traditional educational words, could do better. It has come to me through comments made during the debate that we need to recognise that social problems do not begin and end at the school gates. Disadvantaged communities suffer from deprivation, drugs, crime and anti-social behaviour, and those ills do not stay out of school. They affect pupil behaviour and how children learn. I apologise to noble Lords, but, because the Minister and other Members on the Front Bench are new, I shall repeat that in my authority, we want to try to understand what is going on. We investigated a difficult estate where we came across, as an example, one 14 year-old lad whose attendance at school was variable. That was partly because he was the only person his drug-using mother would trust to inject with drugs. How can that child have the kind of start in life that we would all hope for in our own children? Moreover, if disrespect is widespread in a community, of course it will emerge as problems with discipline in school, a problem referred to by several noble Lords. Education has always been a partnership between a number of players. Sometimes, without recognising it, the Government seem to have scapegoated some of those partners and not recognised the role that they play. I was pleased to note how my noble friend first outlined his personal debt to teachers and then went on to exemplify that by saying how important teachers were as a profession. That optimism is not widely felt among teachers. They do not feel particularly valued at the moment and sense that they are overworked and undersupported. We need teachers to be working well if we are to drive forward improvements in schools. I hope that we will all work on that. Perhaps I did not hear him—if he did mention it, I must apologise—but I do not think that my noble friend referred to the work of local authorities. They have a role as the strategic leaders of their communities to ensure that they can contribute towards improvements in education. In my authority, our local area agreement turns largely on driving up educational standards—and that goes also for the schools that are performing well but could do better. I cite a couple of examples of how LEAs have contributed to real and sound improvements. In Knowsley, the authority developed with partners a curriculum for the 14 to 19 year-old age range and saw an 8 per cent improvement in GCSE performance plus a 5 per cent improvement in the rate of staying on beyond 16. Those are remarkable achievements. In Manchester, following the establishment of a multidisciplinary team covering education, social care and health, exclusions have been reduced by 80 per cent. Again, that is a dramatic improvement. Local authorities want to work with the Government in order to achieve their aims. We want to be partners in that work. I welcome the contributions on the problem of discipline in schools. If my wife were here, she would say, as a strong and experienced teacher, that she found increasing difficulty in establishing an atmosphere in the classroom in which learning could take place properly. Outside the classroom, there is clear evidence of increased bullying and almost racketeering. The worrying trend is that in many cases the parents were not supportive of the teachers but simply believed the version of events relayed to them by their child. The Government are, rightly, giving parents more rights, but parents also have to accept their responsibilities to make sure that they contribute to the learning of not just their own children but others as well. I welcome the Secretary of State’s establishment last week of the leadership group to look at the issue seriously. I hope that my noble friend will consider whether LEAs may have a part to play, because they have a contribution to make. Schools should place discipline right at the top of their agenda. They should make a senior person responsible for discipline in schools and give them the resources to do it. We have heard suggestions in the debate about how that might be done. I do not believe that exclusion is really the solution. It makes it easy for   the school to get rid of a child, but it does not resolve the problem for that child and pushes the problem out into the streets and shopping centres. I hasten to add that I do not expect teachers to have to teach disruptive pupils. Schools should retain responsibility and funding for those pupils. They can use that funding either to make available alternative provision themselves that will keep these children in education or to work with groups of schools or local authorities to do so. In some cases, transferring a child to a different school is a solution because some of the problems that child has may come from within the school. If that could be agreed by schools, it would be a way forward. Indeed, we had such an agreement in Wigan, but it disappeared when, unfortunately, the Government changed the rules yet again. However, I think that that is a way forward that can work for schools, as well as keeping tabs on children. City academies represent a leap of faith for the Government, whose views are usually evidence-based. We do not yet have the relevant evidence about city academies. Are they capable of sustaining improved performance that is not at the expense of other schools in the area? Do they really give us value for money? It is a big investment and it may be a wise one, but are we sure that it is the way forward? Can they be accountable to the local communities they serve? I am an agnostic; I could be convinced, and I am hoping that the evidence can be produced. Even if the Government were to carry out their programme, the plan is to have 200 city academies by 2010. That represents 5 per cent of secondary provision in England, Scotland and Wales. What will happen to the other 95 per cent? The danger is that, if we concentrate all our energies and efforts on city academies, the other secondary schools will feel excluded. If we are to raise attainment, what happens in 95 per cent of schools is important. I hope that my noble friend will recognise that we have not yet addressed the gender imbalance in performance in schools. The performance of girls is outstripping that of boys at GCSE, and staying-on rates are different, certainly in the area that I represent. That will be a problem if we are to compete in the highest way in the future. It is clear that education remains, rightly, a priority for the Labour Government. We are fortunate in having such a capable and knowledgeable Minister in this House to push the Bills through. I am sure that he will acknowledge that he has more to learn. As part of his learning experience—I note that he referred to his own background—I would be delighted to invite him to Wigan to see education outside London. The issues and problems are not always the same. I am sure that he will have a good experience.