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Education and Inspections Bill

My Lords, I have not entered into any of the debates so far on the Bill because I live north of the Border and my own experience, which is out of date but fairly copious on the subject of state education in schools, has not seemed relevant. But there are issues—this is one and there will be another later today in which I hope to take part—which transcend our borders in the United Kingdom. It seems to me that the Government and the leadership of my own party are now asking themselves whether much more autonomy of professionals in schools will bear great fruit. They are asking themselves whether teachers and others in schools can stand a lot more trust from the public in what they do, more freedom and more responsibility. The Scottish Executive have concluded that they cannot stand those things, and that conclusion has been endorsed by the teachers’ unions. Of course, the Scottish Executive partly consist of the Liberal Democrat Party. Looking at what is happening in schools in England, it seems to me that the Government are certainly right. It is very exciting what more freedom can do to help professionals to provide better schools. It is not at all exciting to see what lack of freedom is doing to the Scottish education system, whose outcome is less good than before, going by most of the measures applied. I do not want to run down my own country: I am a great believer in Scottish education and I am sure that it will recover. The question raised by my noble friend in the amendment is simply: should they be asked to continue to govern in future years, will the Government be prepared to increase the autonomy of schools and to have more foundation schools? If they are not, I think that she may be suggesting that our own party would be interested in exploring that. I shall be very interested to hear the Minister’s reply.