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Education and Inspections Bill

My Lords, in case the noble Baroness is in any doubt, let me declare myself at the outset to be a very proud democrat who has been to the fore in many of the arguments that we have had over the past few years on the case for substantial reforms towards greater democracy in society—including, I should stress, within schools. We have had very fruitful debates about the role of school councils and democracy inside schools, on which, I am glad to say, we have been at one with the Liberal Democrats. So we go quite a long part of the way together. We part company on the specific issue of whether, in order to become a trust school, the school must itself hold a ballot of parents. There I am also glad to rely on the democratic mandate of the House of Commons. An amendment on ballot requirements similar to those in this amendment was defeated in the House of Commons by the extraordinarily large majority of 291, by 412 votes to 121 votes. Let me put it this way: the elected House held a ballot and voted against this proposal by a margin of over three to one in a very large Division. That should carry some weight with your Lordships about the role of democracy in the transition of schools to trust status. The Bill sets out substantial requirements for consultation on changes of school status and organisation. A school wishing to change category or to acquire a trust needs to consult a range of local partners on these proposals. Regulations, which we have made available to noble Lords, list those who must be consulted. They specify, "““parents in the area who may be affected by the proposals, including parents of pupils at feeder primary schools and those living in, or who have children attending a school in the area of, an adjoining local education authority””." The governing body may then publish proposals, but must take account of any responses to the consultation and must operate within certain conditions set out by the regulations. These arrangements are consistent with established consultation procedures for other changes of status which fundamentally affect the character of a school, including changes to admissions arrangements and the addition or subtraction of sixth forms and special needs provision. Mandatory ballots are not required for such changes. I should stress to the noble Baroness that many of those changes are much more profound than the move to a trust, which may appoint a minority of the governors—in some cases, only one or two, because of the nature of the trust relationship with the school in question. To have the rigid template that the noble Baroness envisages would not be sensible. However, at its discretion a governing body has the right to hold a ballot, and it may well be appropriate for it to do so if the issue of moving to trust status was particularly controversial within the school community, for example. The governing body of a school may also choose to hold a public meeting of parents—it has absolute power to do so. But we do not believe it necessary to impose mandatory requirements in respect of either ballots or public meetings. As for the electorate, I thought that the noble Baroness was remarkably frank when she said—and I wrote it down when she said it—that the electorate that she proposes in her amendment was not a totally satisfactory one. So the House needs to be clear that the noble Baroness is asking us to vote on a proposal which she herself describes as not totally satisfactory. I agree with her that it is not totally satisfactory. In many cases when schools want to become trust schools, it will be because the school is profoundly failing and needs a very substantial boost and change of character if it is to become an attractive school in its community. As a Minister, I spend a lot of time visiting schools in that circumstance, and the greatest body of local parents who need to be engaged in the life of that school are not those of children who go to the school—because these schools often have very sharply declining rolls and small student populations—but the local body of parents who will not enrol their children in it until it is transformed and provides a satisfactory level of education for them. There are so many cases where that has happened that I do not believe the noble Baroness was in any way incorrect in describing her proposal as not totally satisfactory. I would, if I may, go slightly further and describe it as totally unsatisfactory, because it does not capture the range of partners who need to be engaged in the wider consultation within the community about whether a change of status of a school would help to boost opportunities and standards for the pupils who either attend that school or might attend it if it improved. On Amendment No. 24, the list of persons who must be consulted according to regulations already includes other schools in the area, "““likely to be affected by the proposal””." This level of detail is more appropriate for regulations and, as the regulations already ensure that feeder primary schools must be consulted, I hope that the noble Baroness will be reassured. Finally, on Amendment No. 23, we do not think it right that governing bodies should be required to act by a two-thirds majority. A governing body's decision would normally be by simple majority of those governors present, including in all the other decisions that I mentioned a moment ago. Therefore requiring a two-thirds majority when deciding on trust acquisition proposals would set a threshold which does not apply to any other decision by a governing body, including equally fundamental decisions such as engaging or withdrawing from special needs provision, and opening or closing sixth forms. We see no good justification for it.