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Children, Schools and Families Bill

My Lords, it seems barely a moment since I stood up to greet the 262-clause Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill, which is now an Act. We are here presented with yet another Bill—this time a mere 51 clauses long. It seems that the Government, when they turn to the issue of education, simply cannot resist the urge to bombard the sector with more and more legislation. Year after year we go through more of these Bills and each time the issues become more disparate and the names longer. We have a new acronym here which does not roll as smoothly off the tongue as the ASCL Bill but will no doubt come into regular use as we progress through the various stages. From each of these Bills stem reams and reams of regulations, codes of practice and guidance. Does the Minister concede that the Government are making it incredibly difficult for teachers and head teachers to get on with their main priority, namely educating, because they are being swamped in bureaucracy? As I mentioned in last Thursday’s debate in your Lordships’ House on teaching excellence, led by my noble friend Lady Shephard, the Department for Children, Schools and Families issues nearly 4,000 pages of guidance to schools every year. This new Bill will give teachers even more reading material to occupy their already busy timetables. We have had pages and pages of law and screeds of guidance and yet we are still in a position where 40 per cent of pupils leaving primary school are unable to read, write and add up properly. Figures from 2009 show that half of all pupils in this country did not get five good GCSEs, including English and Maths, and that every day 344 children are suspended from school for assaulting other children. Should the Government not resist the knee-jerk reaction to pass yet another Bill enshrining bureaucracy and targets and instead turn to the solutions which will really address the problems of poor standards in education and school reform? Instead, we see a Bill where the first three clauses establish pupil-parent guarantees. We accept that the aspirations being framed here have good intentions at their heart. Who could object, for example, to a law stating that children should go to schools, ""where there is good behaviour, strong discipline, order and safety"?" However, we on these Benches are unclear as to why it is necessary to enshrine these already existing entitlements in legislation. This is a legalistic and bureaucratic approach to the problem and does nothing to address the really important questions of how to ensure that pupils can go to a school where there is good behaviour, strong discipline, order and safety. There is a gaping hole in policy here which cannot be countered with a guarantee. In another place, Clause 1(8) was introduced to help shore up the fact that this clause would open up the flood gates for increased litigation against schools. We on these Benches would be grateful for this concession. It would be unthinkable for schools to be open to this new layer of litigation. What precise benefits are the Government hoping to gain from a clause which enshrines existing rights and is, thankfully, not legally enforceable? Further bureaucracy can be seen in the clauses relating to home-school contracts. As noble Lords will be aware, we on these Benches have long called for home-school contracts to be strengthened. The Government, however, have decided that this should mean individual agreements—a decision which the Association of School and College Leaders has branded "impractical" because of the bureaucracy which, ""will consume a great deal of school resources"." We welcome the principle that the Government are trying to demonstrate of taking parental views into account. However, we on these Benches feel that the clauses on parental satisfaction surveys and report cards miss the point. In the case of parental satisfaction surveys, can the Minister indicate what perceived costs to local authorities she envisages? Who will the evaluators be and what will that cost? How will outcomes be publicised, where will information be made available and how much that will cost? The parental satisfaction surveys have the potential to be useful but instead they create more bureaucracy with excessive planning, consultation and referral, proposing very little in the way of real action. Surely better ways of engaging with parents must be explored. The report cards may actually undermine the Government’s efforts and reduce accountability because it is unclear what specific factors make up the grade and what weighting will be given to each one. How can they be compared? The overall grade will reveal very little about the school. We on these Benches believe instead in reformed league tables and that we should publish as much factual and objective information as is available about a school. It should not be hidden under an overall grade. I doubt I am alone when I say that my desk is stacked high with letters about this Bill, a large proportion of which are about Clause 26. Is the Minister surprised that this is the case? Clause 26 infringes the basic right of parents to decide what is in the best interests of their child. These parents have done no wrong and committed no crime, yet the law appears to suggest that children are inherently at a greater risk of danger if they are home-educated, that they are less safe with their own parents and so must be the subject of scrutiny by the state. Of course the current system has room for improvement but we believe that changes must be made sensibly and with parents’ involvement, not in a manner which would steamroller over the rights of parents to make decisions about what is in the interests of their own children. In the previous Bill the Government showed their lack of trust in teachers and head teachers. In this Bill that they show they do not trust parents. We all want to ensure that vulnerable children are protected. There is a whole range of instruments already in place for that, but you cannot equip with one hand and take away with another. I have given a very negative picture of our views on this Bill so far. There are, of course, parts of the Bill to which we do not object. We do not object, for example, to the provisions whereby Ofsted inspections report on how well the needs of children with special educational needs are being met in mainstream schools, or the provision of a new right of appeal against an unamended SEN statement. We agree with the Government that it is important to ensure that children with special educational requirements have their needs met in mainstream schools, if those are the most appropriate places for them to be. However, does the Minister accept that if there are complex needs which are not being met, it may be more suitable to place those children with SEN in a special school which may be better equipped and have staff better qualified to meet those requirements? If she agrees with that, how does it marry up with her Government who have reduced the number of places in special schools by 8,000? Nevertheless, there is no hiding from it. On the whole, we on these Benches believe that this is a very bad Bill indeed which is indicative of a Government grasping at straws. We see increased central prescription, regulation, bureaucracy, paperwork and time spent out of the classroom on administration. It offers no clarity but ambiguity for all those involved, a legal minefield, and is ever more intrusive in the lives of law-abiding citizens. All of this is at the expense of really engaging with the issue of poor standards and school reform. We just cannot go on like this. In contrast, we on these Benches would advocate constructive change—real and effective change at the forefront of the education sector. Where the Government would simply pile up guarantees, agreements and surveys on pieces of paper, we will take action. We will raise the bar for teacher recruitment and training and we will give teachers the tools and the powers they need to keep order in their classrooms. We will deliver more robust examinations and a more rigorous curriculum. We will create a new generation of independently run state schools, end wastage and shift spending to a national per-pupil funding formula. Instead of instigating a "licence to practise" for teachers, which will only increase bureaucracy and demonstrates a remarkable lack of trust for the professionalism of the teaching profession, we will take effective action. We hold our teachers in very high esteem; we trust our teachers and we acknowledge the extremely high quality of their work and the commitment that they put into educating our children. The education of our children is paramount to the future of our nation. That is why we will build on this and raise the bar for entry into taxpayer-funded training to ensure that the best graduates become teachers. We will expand successful programmes such as Teach First. We will open up the flexibility of teachers’ pay so that heads will be free to pay good teachers according to their merits. We want to ensure that the teaching profession is accorded with the respect and prestige it deserves, and we will do this by ensuring better teacher recruitment and better teacher training. Instead of the six areas of learning introduced in Clause 10, which bring a total of 84 detailed objectives in English alone, we will simplify the national curriculum to focus on core knowledge and ensure that the objectives become more challenging. We will replace national tests in the second year of primary school with a simple reading test to ensure that every parent knows their child is being taught how to read properly. We will publish detailed information about the exams which pupils are entered into and the results they achieve. We believe in robust examinations and an academically rigorous curriculum. We know, however, that the way to achieve this is not through choking prescription and centralised control. Schools are desperate for change that releases them from prescription and enables them to have freedom. This change should come about through increased choice. We will make it easier for educational charities, groups of parents and teachers, co-operatives and others to start new academies. We will introduce a per capita funding regime and a pupil premium to direct extra funding towards the poorest pupils, whereby pupils and parents can vote with their feet. We will also give every school the right to apply to become an academy; and academies themselves will have their crucial freedoms restored. I have studied this Bill carefully. I have thought over the provisions. I have done my research. This is a largely bad Bill—a Bill for headlines and not substance. I am afraid that the only conclusion I can come to is that we just cannot go on like this. It is time for change.