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Mr. Laws: Thank you, Mrs. Humble. We come to one of the more interesting parts of the Bill. Some people outside this place have suggested that the Bill has been pulled together by the Government from a rag-bag of policy odds and ends that have been hanging around for some time, to create a sense that the Government have some momentum in education, rather a sense of a Government in their last year who are perhaps running out of momentum and direction in education. However, I think that that is not entirely fair, because two important parts to the Bill—parts 7 and 8—are both important and controversial. Those parts have attracted a large number of amendments—some 200—about half of which were tabled by the two Opposition parties, with the Government tabling about 100, which may be a comment on something. We will reflect on what that something is later.
Mr. Gibb: Is the hon. Gentleman not being unfair in criticising the Government for being at the end of their period in office and running out of steam when they have created, according to the Minister, a single portal for schools, website clarification and, of course, the bureaucracy reduction group?
Mr. Laws: Yes, perhaps I am, or perhaps those outside this place are being unfair and not giving the bureaucracy taskforce the credit that it deserves. We look forward to receiving the Minister’s letter to find out how much credit it deserves.
Schedule 9 introduces the Ofqual part of the debate. With your tolerance and willingness, Mrs. Humble, you will understand that it will be sensible for me to make some opening comments on why this part of the Bill and amendments 50, 51 and so on are so important. They touch on the schedule that makes provision for the constitution and governance of Ofqual, which are matters of fundamental importance. It is necessary to reflect on the reasons why Ofqual has come into existence, why it is so important that that body is seen to be properly independent of Ministers, and whether the terms in which that independence is framed are adequate for the job that Ministers require Ofqual to do. I assume that you will want us, Mrs. Humble, to have a schedule 9 stand part debate as part of the debate on the amendments, though obviously you will indicate if you are not happy with that.
I emphasise the importance of schedule 9. I have been responsible for my party’s education portfolio for the past couple of years, and it has become obvious to me that one of the problems in discussing education policy is that it is very difficult to get any sense of agreement among the individuals and groups that have an interest in education policy, even on what has happened to standards in the past 10 or 20 years. The Government are entitled to point to statistics indicating that there has been some improvement in examination results, particularly in the past decade, but others, including academic researchers, suggest that, if anything, standards have declined, and that young people, including those who go on to universities, are not as well educated as in the past. There are a great many anecdotal reports of universities and other bodies instituting additional catch-up courses for new students to compensate for the educational standards that, according to those institutions, prevail today.
The Government have responded in some ways to such concerns by introducing schedule 9, which is so important in determining the governance and independence of Ofqual. When the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families announced the establishment of Ofqual at the Labour party conference in September 2007, he acknowledged the scale of the problem with which the Government, through this schedule, are trying to deal. He said:
“We have not managed to persuade the public, parents and employers about the standards of exams. The more I’ve looked at this the more I’ve concluded that there are...problems that require reform.”
He then announced that a new body would be responsible for the oversight of standards and that it would be properly independent from the Government and seek to end the annual debate and uncertainty about exam standards, which usually occurs around August and September, when many of the most important exam results are announced.
It is a great pity that in pulling those proposals and measures together, the Government have ignored some of the advice from the relevant Select Committee and elsewhere that reflects the debate on educational standards, as well as what has happened to those standards and the need for more objective reporting of them. We will obviously discuss that issue when we debate clause 125, but it is worth reflecting upon present concerns, both in and outside Parliament, about the degree of autonomy that Ofqual will have, which relates directly to schedule 9.
The Secretary of State gave a number of undertakings on Second Reading. He suggested initially that Ofqual would be an independent regulator of standards; we will return to the meaning of that later. He sounded some alarm bells, however, when he spoke of the Government’s view of the nature of Ofqual’s independence and of their expectations of the new body. He said:
“We have to get away from this ridiculous, damaging and draining debate about dumbing down, when, whenever standards go up and teachers and young people have worked hard, some politicians and commentators jump up and say, ‘This must be because standards have been dumbed down.’ That is not fair, and it is not right. Rather than my making such assurances about standards, it will be much better when Ofqual, the independent regulator, makes such assurances to the public and to families.”—[Official Report, 23 February 2009; Vol. 488, c. 27.]
The Secretary of State did not say that Ofqual was going to be an independent commentator that would often criticise the Government and comment upon standards that might have declined. Whether he meant to say it or not, what he actually said was that it would be Ofqual that would give assurances about standards each year. That betrays the Government’s intentions in setting up the new body. Ofqual has not been made as independent as it should be, as we will show in our amendments. There is still a great deal of potential for the Secretary of State to influence it and there are concerns about how it will carry out its responsibilities. We will come on to that, too, later.
Mr. Gibb: I am listening very carefully to the hon. Gentleman’s excellent introduction to the amendments. I do not believe that the cause of concern is just that one-off statement in the House by the Secretary of State. All the subsequent letters we have received from Ministers confirm my view that establishing Ofqual is actually about public relations and telling the public that standards are high, rather than ensuring that standards are high. That is our principal concern about the way Ofqual has been established.
Mr. Laws: I agree with the hon. Gentleman. It is interesting to note that in the September 2007 interview with the Secretary of State in The Daily Telegraph in which the announcement was trailed, the right hon. Gentleman was very explicit about a loss of confidence among the public regarding standards. However, I noticed that when the Minister for Schools and Learners gave his evidence to the Committee a couple of weeks ago, he was very clear that there had been no dumbing-down at all and that standards were as high as they had ever been.
It is dangerous for Ministers to set up a body that is charged with ensuring confidence in standards and to then pre-empt the conclusions of that body. To be fair to the Secretary of State, on Second Reading, after he made those comments about Ofqual giving assurances about standards each year, he said that he was
“not going to second-guess its work. That is Ofqual’s remit and responsibility, and it should get on with that work.”—[Official Report, 23 February 2009; Vol. 488, c. 27.]
unhindered—my word, not the Secretary of State’s. We will reflect on that as we discuss the amendments to schedule 9.
The Government’s attitude to Ofqual is important; the way that Ofqual discharges its responsibilities is also important. Early indications of how it has operated since it was established in shadow mode are not entirely reassuring. When we took evidence from Kathleen Tattersall a few weeks ago, we encountered great reticence about commenting on the standards debate over examination results in the last 10 or 20 years. That does not indicate that Ofqual will build the reputation for impartiality that is necessary to its gaining the confidence of the public and education professionals.
The Committee should consider also the comments that Ofqual made during and just after the utter shambles of marking key stage 2 and key stage 3 tests last year. It was very quick to say that, on the basis of the evidence it had seen, the quality of marking was at least as good as in previous years. That comment was made before the recent report on the number of reviews of key stage 2 and key stage 3 test results, which showed not only an explosion in the number of appeals against the marking of those tests, but a very high level of the appeals being upheld. The combination of a quadrupling of appeals with a very high rate of upholding those appeals indicates to me that there were question marks about the quality of marking last year. It makes me nervous that Ofqual should be so quick to jump to conclusions before even seeing the results of the appeals process.
We are arguing for a far more independent educational standards authority—one that is not only capable of regulating the existing approved qualifications, but able and empowered to make judgments about standards that do not rely only on looking at the existing qualifications themselves. We know that that is an important ongoing debate because we have the comments of Mike Cresswell and others from the Assessment and Qualifications Alliance about the risk there will be to the credibility of standards when the new modular GCSEs come in. He suggests that results are likely to improve because of the introduction of modular GCSEs in a way that is not related to the underlying standards. If we do not get Ofqual and the basis for its independence correct now, we will have problems in the future.
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As I mentioned, schedule 9 deals with the constitution of Ofqual and touches on its independence. We are disappointed that the opportunity has not been taken to give more independence to Ofqual in the way that key staff members are selected, in how it operates, and in questions of accountability. There has been an increasing amount of debate in this place over the past five or 10 years about the important role that Select Committees should play in holding bodies such as Ofqual to account. However, schedule 9 and part 7 miss a number of opportunities to introduce that accountability, not only to the Secretary of State, but to a cross-party Select Committee that might help to preserve a greater element of independence in the way that Ofqual discharges its responsibilities.
As briefly as possible, I would like to go through some of the amendments to schedule 9 tabled in my name and those of my hon. Friends the Members for Bristol, West and for Mid-Dorset and North Poole. If the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton will allow me, to save time I would also like to indicate those amendments tabled by him that we particularly support, as well as a couple that appear to cut against our argument in favour of a greater degree of independence.
Amendment 50 would remove the power of the Secretary of State directly to appoint the seven to 12 ordinary members of the Ofqual board. There must be a serious concern about how independent we can expect the board of Ofqual to be if it is appointed entirely, or almost entirely, by the Secretary of State. There is a strong argument for Crown appointments to the Ofqual board, in order to try and institutionalise a greater degree of independence in the way that members of the body are chosen. The individuals on the board, the chief executive and the way that Ofqual discharges its responsibilities will make all the difference to whether the body is an effective monitor of standards or a lapdog of the Secretary of State on a tight leash. It is vital to ensure that we have a process that properly selects members to be on the board of Ofqual.
Amendment 51 would remove the power of the Secretary of State directly to appoint the deputy chair of Ofqual; instead, it would place that power with the ordinary members of the Ofqual board. It is not obvious why the Secretary of State should take it upon himself not only to have powers in relation to the chair, the chief executive and the ordinary members of Ofqual, but to dictate and determine who is the deputy chair. Those are important appointments and we think that a greater degree of independence should prevail.
Amendment 52 would remove the power of the Secretary of State to dismiss the deputy chair of Ofqual; it would instead place that power with the ordinary members of the Ofqual board. At the moment, schedule 9 gives the Secretary of State power to remove the deputy chair of Ofqual if he thinks that that is appropriate. That seems an extraordinarily far-ranging power to give the Secretary of State. The power is poorly defined and surely unnecessary if Ofqual is to be genuinely independent of the Government in the way that the Secretary of State indicated when he first made the announcement in September 2007 and when he repeated his undertakings about independence in the House of Commons on Second Reading.
Amendment 53 would remove the power of the Secretary of State to dismiss the ordinary members of the Ofqual board and place that power with the fellow members of the Ofqual board. The Bill as drafted gives powers to the Secretary of State to remove members of the Ofqual board if they are unfit to carry out their responsibilities or if they are absent. It seems very odd indeed that the Secretary of State should have to get involved in circumstances where a board member is absent for a prolonged period. It seems entirely sensible that the Ofqual board itself should deal with that. There also seems to be no reason why the Ofqual board cannot carry out a policing responsibility in relation to the fitness of members of the board to discharge their responsibilities.
Amendment 54 would allow Ofqual the power to appoint its own chief executive, rather than have that individual chosen by the Secretary of State. Clearly, if Ofqual is to be regarded as an independent body, that is a fundamentally important power. At the moment, the fear is that the Secretary of State will use many of the powers set out in schedule 9 to select people who are likely to have a particular view in the standards debate and who are likely to echo the type of complacency about standards that we have heard from Ministers in general over the past few years.
In our view, it is vital that the individuals who are on the Ofqual board and the key officers of Ofqual, including the chief executive, should be as independent and as independent-minded as possible. Even if the individuals who are selected are independent-minded, there is a serious concern that if the Secretary of State takes to himself these powers, which we have discussed in relation to earlier amendments, to dismiss individuals in the rather cavalier and light-touch way that is allowed for in schedule 9, it might restrict the willingness of the individuals on the board and the senior officers to act in a way that is as independent and as impartial as we would want.
Amendment 55 would allow Ofqual the power to set conditions of service for its own first chief executive, rather than have them dictated by the Secretary of State. Again, if the Secretary of State really wants Ofqual to be seen to be an independent body and to manage its own affairs, as he indicated on Second Reading, it is astonishing that he should take to himself powers in these areas.
Amendment 57 would remove the power to approve the appointment and conditions of Ofqual chief executives from the Secretary of State and give it to the Children, Schools and Families Committee. That comes back to the point I made earlier about the importance of having mechanisms of accountability in this place that do not simply rely on the political leadership of the Department, which potentially has incentives to put pressure on Ofqual to say the right things and be consistent with what the Government are saying about the standards debate.
I think that amendment 58 has not only our support, but potentially that of the interim chair of Ofqual herself. It would take the power to approve the number of staff members at Ofqual, their conditions of service and their remuneration away from the Secretary of State and give that line of accountability to the Children, Schools and Families Committee. If Ofqual is to be as independent as the Secretary of State suggested only a few weeks ago in the House, it is extraordinary that paragraph 6(5) of schedule 9 gives the Secretary of State the power to approve
“the number of members of staff of Ofqual...their conditions of service”
and
“the amount of remuneration, allowances and expenses paid to them.”
In the note that was sent to the Committee before the evidence session with Kathleen Tattersall, Ofqual said:
Ofqual is clearly concerned about the powers in the schedule that insist on the Secretary of State’s approval even for matters such as the number of staff and their terms and conditions. That suggests a degree of micro-management that is surely not necessary.
Amendment 59 would remove the duty on Ofqual to review its committees every five years. It would be sensible of Ofqual to review its committees and to do other things relatively regularly, but it is beyond me why the Secretary of State should use the Bill to direct and micro-manage Ofqual in quite that way. That suggests an unwillingness on the part of the Secretary of State to accept that this body will be properly independent.
I will touch on a couple of the amendments tabled by the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton. We support amendments 385 and 420, which would make more explicit the duty to maintain the standard of regulated qualification. We will come back to that issue under clause 125. We also support amendments 416 and 417, which deal with openness on pay and pensions. Although we want Ofqual to have the flexibility and freedom to determine its own priorities, it should be held publicly accountable on some of these key issues and it must be transparent. Recently, there has been evidence of great profligacy in the public sector over the levels of pay and pensions. I am not talking only about this place.
As the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton might expect from my earlier comments, we have less sympathy with amendments 418 and 415. Amendment 418 would give the Secretary of State the power to appoint the head of Ofqual and amendment 415 would allow the Secretary of State to sack the chief executive of Ofqual on the basis that it is appropriate to do so. Just as it is wrong that the deputy at Ofqual can be dismissed in such a cavalier way, it would be dangerous to accept amendment 415. It would be dangerous to give the Secretary of State the power to get rid of the chief executive of Ofqual when the chief executive might say things that are not in favour of the Secretary of State or criticise the Government’s activities in relation to standards and the dumbing-down debate.
We have serious concerns about whether the Government are delivering on their promise that Ofqual will have genuine independence and be accountable to Parliament rather than just to the Secretary of State. We fear that unless some changes are made, there is a serious risk that from day one Ofqual will be seen to be not fully independent and autonomous. It will therefore not secure the reputation that it needs for the debate on standards to be resolved in the way that we all want.
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