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Education and Skills Bill

Although I enjoyed the speech by the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr. Gibb), I noticed that he was somewhat more reticent than usual when it came to allowing interventions. That may have been because the force of his argument against the amendments was somewhat undermined by the fact that they had enjoyed the support of his party in another place and, moreover, by the fact that he did not quote in full Lord Elton's words from the Third Reading debate on 11 November. He spoke of the noble Lord's reservations, but omitted the most important part of the quotation. Lord Elton said:"““I am glad to see the flexibility written into the amendment—the variety of ways in which consultation can take place.””—[Official Report, House of Lords, 11 November 2008; Vol. 705, c. 572.]" It is clear from those comments that although Lord Elton may have been concerned about the implications of too great a degree of prescriptiveness, he felt that the degree of flexibility in the amendment was quite acceptable. Because he is assiduous in these matters, the hon. Gentleman will also know that, to some extent, the Liberal Democrat amendment was prompted by Lord Elton's amendment. He did not take quite enough credit for the role played by the Conservative party in another place in originating these proposals. Lord Elton tabled amendment No. 61, which sought to place a duty on the governing body of a maintained school"““to have due regard to the ascertainable views of the pupil on matters that affect him or her, taking account of his or her age and maturity.””" Subsection (2) of the amendment stated:"““A governing body of a maintained school must establish a democratically formed school council or other collective mechanism, the purpose of which is to enable pupils to discuss matters relating to their school and their education and to make representations on these to the government body and the head teacher.””" The hon. Gentleman expressed concern about the prescriptive nature of the amendment tabled by my noble Friend Lady Walmsley. What did she actually say when she had to comment on Lord Elton's amendment? She hesitated to support it, and also, she said,"““hesitated to be too prescriptive about the way in which the voice of the students should be collected””." She continued:"““We devised our own amendment that did not specify a school council because we did not want to be too prescriptive; we wanted to give schools the opportunity to be creative and respond appropriately to their own circumstances, devising their own ways of gathering students' views””.—[Official Report, House of Lords, 1 July 2008; Vol. 703, c. 228-29.]" When we look at what actually happened in another place, we discover that—rather contrary to the impression given by the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton—there was an extremely prescriptive Tory amendment, followed by Liberal Democrat criticism of the extent of the prescriptiveness and by a Liberal Democrat amendment featuring much more flexibility, which was commended by the Conservatives and which they supported when it became a Government amendment and was accepted by another place as a whole. There was another interesting aspect of the views of the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton and, perhaps, his reservations about pressing his points too strongly. He quoted from various publications, including The Times Educational Supplement, which had reported some of the things that teachers' leaders had said over the last week or so. I noted that one quotation was missing. The hon. Gentleman smiles modestly—sheepishly, even. That is because he knows very well which quotation I mean. It is the quotation from his favourite principal of his favourite school, which he mentions frequently. I refer to Mossbourne academy in Hackney, which the hon. Gentleman cited with appropriate reverence earlier. He was referring to an excellent school, but why did he not refer to the quotation from Sir Michael Wilshaw, its head? According to the front page of this week's TES, he said that"““schools would not have to alter what they were already doing for pupil voice””," because so many are already, in very appropriate ways, consulting the pupil body, and presumably the academy as well. The hon. Gentleman also mentioned the Education Act 2002, which already places obligations on schools to consult.