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School Governance (Constitution, Federations and New Schools) (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2005

My Lords, I believe that it is in order for me to respond briefly to the Minister. I thank him for his very extensive response to the Prayer. Perhaps I may say to him first that if he thinks that the Liberal Democrats are happy with the status quo and do not want any change, he has misunderstood. I thought that in both Houses of Parliament yesterday we made it very clear that we are not happy with the status quo. Just because we do not agree with how the Government propose to change the status quo and improve matters does not mean that we are not absolutely at one with them in wanting to do that. But, it is in the nature of real opposition that we are challenging, we ask questions and we do not necessarily agree with the Government’s way of doing things. We want to improve quality and to remove inequity. We perhaps do not always agree about the best way of doing that. I thank the Minister for his comments on my question about whether some of these regulations will become redundant following yesterday’s White Paper. Of course we accept that whatever legislation comes along the track as a result of yesterday’s White Paper will take some time, but I am still not clear whether in the fullness of time two of these regulations may become redundant. I suppose only time will tell, because we do not yet know exactly what legislation the Government will propose. I would say, however, that these regulations, as the Minister has just commented, came into force in August. Parliament has a right to pray against such regulations. They were only published in July and they came into force during the Recess. I have to ask the question: what is Parliament for? It is to question all these things; and we have the power to do it. In what way could we have exerted that power in the middle of the Recess before the regulations came into effect? I think the Government were wrong. They should have waited until after this debate, which we are having early in the Session and at the first opportunity we have been given. I shall make one or two comments on specific remarks that the Minister made. He mentioned the four governors which schools can now have. He said that the provision allows schools to form relationships with more businesses. But I question whether a business has to have a place on a governing body before it is prepared to go in and help that school. I think not. It is perhaps a rather cynical suggestion that that might be the case. I think many businesses will want to go in and help schools without having a place on the school governing body. I very much hope that that continues. I asked whether schools could be given help and guidance about, perhaps, screening businesses with which they were thinking of having a stronger relationship. I certainly was not asking for the DfES to say who should do that with schools. That would be the sort of centralist approach that I would be very much against. Perhaps the Minister slightly misunderstood what I was asking for there. I certainly think that it would not be inappropriate for the department to offer some help if schools wished it. Does the Minister want to intervene?