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Baroness Thomas of Walliswood: My Lords, I apologise to the noble Baroness. I cannot read my writing.
Lord Graham of Edmonton: It is said with a Scottish accent!
Baroness Thomas of Walliswood: My Lords, I do not mind her Scottish accent; it is charming.
I refer to the 50 per cent. enlargement possibility mentioned in the Bill. However, there is another problem here; namely, the interaction of changes in entry qualification and school size with the budgetary process. Can the Minister indicate an annual date in any budget year by which changes for the following school year have to be notified to the relevant authorities? If there is no date, I do not see how local education authorities will manage their budgetary processes.
As regards the more general matters in the Bill, we have had some interesting discussion about choice of schools as against the power of choice by schools. It is my understanding that the Government have admitted that parental choice is overridden by the abilities of schools to select pupils for their academic ability. I do not think there is any reason for us to discuss this matter further as it is set down in the Bill. However, many of us feel that is a dangerous element in the Bill and we shall no doubt wish to make that clear in seeking to amend various parts of the Bill.
I and other noble Lords were concerned about the provision as regards selection and primary schools. That seems to me to be absolutely contrary to the valuable ethos which has been built up by primary schools; namely, they are the basic local schools where children
from all social backgrounds and levels of income come together simply because they live in the same area. I admit that may not be the case in the more difficult and dangerous parts of our inner cities. However, that is no reason to set about destroying those schools in the many parts of this country where they achieve exactly the purpose I have referred to.Who takes the decisions about changes in schools? It is interesting that Mark Carlisle, Secretary of State for Education, said in 1979:
- "It is our belief that local education authorities and local people--not central Government--are best placed to determine the most suitable form of secondary school organisation in their area".--[Official Report, Commons, 19/6/79; cols. 1120 to 21.]
That was quoted in the House of Commons briefing on this Bill. I do not think that any noble Lords on this side of the Chamber would quarrel with that. When choice over change is given to parents whose children are currently at a given school, the alteration in school characteristic becomes most dangerous. The noble Lord, Lord Monkswell, made that point neatly. I shall not emphasise it further.
Some interesting remarks were made--there were not as many as I had hoped for--about the general nature of education. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Ripon raised the point. The noble Earl, Lord Baldwin of Bewdley, mourned the decline of community schools and referred to their value as educational institutions. On the whole, perhaps noble Lords felt defeated by the detail of the Bill, finding it difficult to relate that to the broad requirements of education. The noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, was an exception.
I turn to the clauses which caused the most argument--and most amusing and knockabout argument it was, too. My noble friend Lord Tope expressed fluently our views on the principles of selection. I do not need to repeat them. I am not sure that I join with the noble Lord, Lord Morris of Castle Morris, on the salmonella part of the curate's egg. The noble Lord expressed himself with his usual panache and fluency. No doubt the points will be made again by the noble Baroness, Lady Farrington of Ribbleton.
However, we had a spirited argument about comprehensive versus selective schools. Many noble Lords who defended the Bill in this argument defeated their own objective. They referred to the fact that the situation was not good when we had grammar schools; we then changed the organisation and it was still not very good; so we propose to change the organisation again. No doubt many noble Lords are familiar with the well known words written by Petronius more than 2000 years ago about reorganisation. He said that reorganisation can be a wonderful method for creating the illusion of progress while producing confusion, inefficiency and demoralisation. That is the argument which many hold against the series of Bills since 1979 which have sought to change our educational process. We are not sure whether there were 21, 19 or 18, but there have been too many.
I apply that response to the amusing suggestion by the noble Lord, Lord Beloff, that all noble Lords sitting on this Bench are dinosaurs. I cannot see what good there can be in returning to some previous situation
because one is not happy with the current position. Perhaps I may take this opportunity on behalf of the education authority with which I am associated, and most other education authorities with which I am familiar, to deny categorically that there has been any unfair participation of education authorities and their officers in the election processes which have or have not determined movement from local education authority to grant-maintained schools. I believe that it was a most unwise comment from the noble Baroness, Lady Young. I hope that she did not mean it in quite the way it sounded. I shall read in Hansard tomorrow what she said. It seemed an uncharacteristically disagreeable comment.Rather than changing constantly from one organisational mode to another, I believe that we should concentrate on what is wrong with our educational process today and direct our efforts towards ensuring that some of those wrongs are put right in the classrooms. Noble Lords from all Benches have made a number of suggestions. I agree that the main problem that we face today is under-achievement by those of average and below average ability. I add only one point. We are storing up real problems through the comparative lack of success of boys in our schools. I cannot think of anything more dangerous than to leave large numbers of young men with insufficient educational attainment at the age of 16 or 18. That is dangerous for society and for them. We should ask ourselves why that is occurring and spread good practice to ensure that such under-attainment ceases.
I could continue, but I shall not; I have spoken at reasonable length. A number of interesting points were made. For example, the noble Baroness, Lady David, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Ripon, and others suggested that we shall have a considerable number of amendments to the Bill. I began to be thankful that three days have been set aside for Committee stage.
Lord Morris of Castle Morris: My Lords, it is four days.
Baroness Thomas of Walliswood: My Lords, four might be better or worse, according to one's point of view; five would be over-egging the pudding.
My noble friend Lord Tope said that we had some reservations about the section of the Bill on discipline. We shall return to them later. Almost everyone agreed that the words "disqualified person" attached to school children are utterly unacceptable. I hope that the Government will respond today by indicating a willingness to consider a better phrase. To describe someone of seven, 12 or 15 as "disqualified" seems terrible. We seek to encourage young people to be good citizens, not to consider themselves as disqualified before they even reach adult life.
On home-school contracts, real doubts must be expressed as to whether or not they will be used as part of the admission process. We believe that those contracts should be part of activity in school after children have been admitted. In that context, I find it difficult to understand what is meant by parent-centred
education. I am not sure that education should be centred firmly on a specific aspect of the general partnership which surrounds education. I have no doubt that education is for pupils and not for parents.The baseline assessment provision has been widely welcomed. The noble Baroness, Lady Ramsay of Cartvale, drew attention again to the danger of the assessments becoming yet another qualification or reason for refusing applicants to a school.
Finally, I cannot bear to use the acronym for the Qualifications and National Curriculum Authority. Someone will have to consider how to improve it. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Ripon referred to it most delicately. He suggested that we should solve the problem by broadening the remit of the new authority to cover the whole of the school's curriculum. That might be a good way round the problem. Like the noble Lord, Lord Pilkington of Oxenford, we hope to improve the Bill.
8 p.m.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton: My Lords, I begin by declaring an interest as a member of a local education authority. The debate has been very wide-ranging and informative. The Bill is one of the major measures of the last Session of this Parliament. Like many other speakers, I shall also refer to the various parts of the Bill.
The Bill's stated intentions are: to provide greater power to extend the selection of pupils by schools and the specialisation of schools in terms of subjects; to allow the funding agency for schools to create more grant-maintained schools; to extend the assisted places scheme to children of primary age; and to change the framework of school discipline.
The Minister intimated that the Government intend to seek to restore Clause 3 at the next stage. Perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, will forgive me if I ask at this stage whether a similar Labour ambush can be arranged in this House. My understanding is that the Conservative Whip on the Committee was locked out, and then failed to count correctly when it came to a vote. I therefore ask whether it is possible to have similar co-operation from the Government in order to ambush the defeated Clause 3 when they seek to reintroduce it.
My noble friend Lord Morris of Castle Morris referred in detail to many parts of the Bill which, it is agreed, need close scrutiny. My calculation is that there have been 18 new education Acts since 1979; and, as previous speakers remarked, this Bill includes amendments to the Education Act 1996.
The noble Baroness, Lady Young, accused the Opposition Benches of being negative. Perhaps I may remind the noble Baroness that the Government, too, have changed their policy on many occasions, in some cases in line with points raised during the passage of the initial legislation. I refer for instance to the matter of the national curriculum, when the Government had to climb down, having wasted public money and having caused stress and distress to teachers and pupils alike in our
schools. On those areas of the Bill where there is agreement, we shall table a range of amendments to secure the best possible success.Many speakers raised concerns and questions regarding selection and the rejection of pupils because of their lack of ability or aptitude. My noble friend Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede raised an important point about parental attitude to education to which I shall return later. This area also caused concern to the noble Baroness, Lady Warnock, whose knowledge and background in education will contribute greatly to our debates at later stages of the Bill.
The noble Baroness, Lady Young, posed a question as to why there were so few girls' schools to meet parental demand. In my experience, parents of daughters are happy for them to be educated apart from boys more frequently than the parents of boys wish their sons to be educated apart from girls. That produces a problem for those who have to provide education. We cannot force girls to be educated with boys at all times; however, their leavening influence is to be desired by those who, like myself, produce only boy children.
The changes proposed and the issues raised were stressed very clearly by my noble friend Lady Ramsay of Cartvale. She made an extremely important contribution relating to the way in which schools are perceived by very many parents.
The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Ripon referred to the large number of church schools in this country and the large number of pupils educated in those schools. It is extremely important that during the Bill's passage something is done to tackle the lack of proper control or consultation that will emerge as a result of the proposals in the Bill as it stands unamended, and were the Government successfully to reintroduce the defeated Clause 3.
Many speakers referred to the report of the Audit Commission and the devastating effect of what has happened. No organisation concerned with the education of our children can fail to share the concern of the National Association of Head Teachers that the sort of proposals placed before us by the Government will lead to gridlock. As my noble friend Lady Ramsay of Cartvale said in referring to parents, siblings with special needs need to have access to schools; siblings with special needs need resourcing. How can we justify wasting public money on a system that would increase the problem already referred to by the Audit Commission? Perhaps the commission should do a survey on effectiveness, efficiency and economy resulting from the Government's policies and proposals in the Bill.
The changes will affect all schools; and all schools will suffer if finances are made available to allow schools to extend their premises and catchment area, and, worst of all, if advisory funding is extended to additional schools in a locality. How can it be fair, in an area where parents are already complaining and struggling in relation to the level of resourcing for schools, to allow, without adequate consultation and without heed to the effects on adjacent schools, an
increase in assisted places at the cost of existing schools? That cannot be a sensible use of public resources.The extension of the assisted places scheme to primary school children is proposed as against reducing class sizes for half a million other children over a period of years. As my noble friend Lady David said, those excluded pupils referred to in later clauses include large numbers of children--by Ofsted's calculation some 75 per cent.--who have unmet special needs.
Turning to resources and the result of the proposals before us, it is extremely important to examine whether those resources should be spent on ensuring special needs measures. The noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, referred to the importance of tackling problems before they become too great. It is very important that those resources are spent on primary school children and are not dissipated as a result of a government whim to mess up the planning system for schools, affecting 90 per cent. of parents and children in this country.
In seeking to examine the whole issue of pupil exclusion, perhaps the Minister will tell us, at a later stage if he does not have the information to hand, whether any links between family poverty and low levels of achievement in our schools have been detected as a result of HMI or Ofsted work. Has any work been done on the correlation between the number of free school meals and levels of attainment by our pupils? Perhaps we could be given full details.
University entrance figures show that the system is successful. Many speakers referred to the increased number of pupils leaving the comprehensive system, as well as the grammar school and independent systems, who go into higher education. When he replies, will the Minister tell us whether the press reports are correct that the Government's answer to their failure to create a climate of high quality, highly paid, highly skilled job opportunities for graduate leavers is to reduce the number of graduates rather than to carry out the policy which is their responsibility? They have the responsibility to increase the number of job opportunities at that level for graduates.
I ask that because during the debate I have been concerned that some speakers have implied that there is a small amount of butter to be spread either generously for a few or widely and too thinly for the many. From these Benches, we reject that approach.
The noble Lord, Lord Walton of Detchant, made an important point, as did the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas, about the importance of a general teaching council. My noble friends Lord Morris of Castle Morris and Lord Monkswell referred to the need for the overwhelming number of our children to be given good, high quality education. Fragmentation will not achieve that objective. Parents of statemented pupils will have a choice if there is fragmentation and greater selection in the education system: the parents of statemented pupils will have a back-up guarantee. But what about the 18 per cent. of pupils who the Government know have special educational needs? Most, if not all of them, achieve low levels of attainment when measured by selection procedures. Are we really going back to a
situation where a family which has regard for its neighbourhood and community and has three children whom it wishes to see educated in the same local schools will no longer be able to do so?This has been a very sad debate in some ways because it has failed to tackle the reality of the lives of 90 per cent. of parents in the community. They are not concerned about increasing choice, they are concerned that, if money is available, we should not have a situation where people who are not democratically accountable to anyone can, without regard to the needs of the adjacent area, waste scarce capital resources on building schools that are not needed while schools that are used, loved and valued by parents are crumbling from lack of capital investment. That is the kind of issue with which we cannot deal.
The noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, cheered me up because he reminded me of someone for whom I had enormous respect, although I never shared his views on monetarist economic policy. That is the late Lord Joseph. I remember working with him when I represented the ACC on education matters. I discussed with him many of the proposals that went through. I remind your Lordships that Lord Joseph was an extremely interesting speaker on the subject of education. He would have differed from the noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, and would have shared the views of my noble friend Lady Blackstone. They are that the starting point of education is to motivate and attract the attention of the children whom you seek to educate. Yes, you can teach children to learn numbers by rote. It is possible, it is even essential as part of the learning process and the skills they acquire. But education goes beyond that to self-motivation and self-understanding. I recollect that--
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