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Lord Sheppard of Liverpool: What was the difference, my Lords?
Lord Hattersley: My Lords, the difference was that the special advisers knew something. The Permanent Secretary asked him what he thought his role was. He said that his role was to give spurious intellectual justification for my political prejudices. As I say, we rarely disagree but he is wrong to say that there is no philosophy in the Bill. The philosophy of the Bill is the Prime Minister's philosophy of meritocracy. The able, the industrious, the determined surge ahead and we do not have to worry much about the rest. That is a philosophy which I find offensive to all the standards and all the beliefs I hold.
I wish to say a few words about faith schools. That is another example of "new speak". We used to call them religious schools and I propose to call them religious schools tonight. I do not share some of the concerns of my noble friends as regards faith schools. Certainly, in a free society faith schools should exist. However, faith schools existing is rather different from faith schools being promoted by the Government, as the noble Lord, Lord Baker, said. If the Secretary of State for Education is right and if she means what she says and they will be created only if there is a real demand for them in an area, although I am not an enthusiast for faith schools, it is difficult to deny that right if there is a real demand. However, I should like to know how the demand is to be assessed. I do not think that the
demand can be represented by the views of the Episcopate or the views of the mosques in the area; it has to be the views of the people. I notice that my noble friend Lord Dearing nods his head. He mentioned the absence of a faith school in South Yorkshire. In fact there is a faith school called Notre Dame, but he was thinking of faith schools in rather more limited terms. I believe that I know South Yorkshire at least as well as he does. I see no upsurge of demand from the people of South Yorkshire for a faith school.
Lord Dearing: My Lords, I am no expert on the wishes of parents in that part of Yorkshire. However, the papers I was given at this morning's meeting show that of the 8,000 children in Church of England primary schools, the parents of 3,200 of them had explicitly asked for the opportunity to send their children to a Church of England secondary school. I agree very much—I believe that the Government have said this—that it is a matter of whether the parents want that and, I would further say, provided there has been full consultation and agreement with the LEA and it has been through a schools organisation committee and there has been full discussion and, hopefully, a unanimous recommendation.
Lord Hattersley: My Lords, I do not want to detain the House too long by giving a reply to that intervention which in a sense it deserves. However, I am sceptical about the genuine demand of parents for that education. I understand the genuine demand of parents to send their children to Church primary schools, but I also know, as my noble friend Lord Peston said, that part of the demand for a place in a faith secondary school is because that is regarded as a bit special. Therefore, the demand has to be genuine and have a religious rather than a social base. I do not understand how the Government can assess that and that worries me. How can the Government assess which Church should be allowed to develop faith schools? The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Blackburn referred to world faiths of every kind. Would the Government approve a Jehovah's Witness school or a Seventh Day Adventist school? I cannot see constitutional propriety of any kind in the Government having a list of acceptable religions and other religions with which they will not do business.
That situation has enormous dangers, some of which my noble friend Lord Plant mentioned. I spent 33 years of my life representing a constituency which, by the time I retired from the House of Commons, comprised almost entirely Muslims, Sikhs or Hindus. What my noble friend said was certainly borne out by my experience; that is, the people who push hardest for faith schools have the most fundamental view of their religion and the most, dare I say, extreme interpretation of what their religion demands. I say only that there are immense dangers in going down that path. However, I doubt whether the Government will go down it.
The noble Baroness who speaks for the Liberals said that on reading the Bill she sometimes wonders what it
is really about. If she will forgive me for saying so, her naivety astounds me. The Bill's principal purpose is declaratory. Governance has changed during the past four years. There are not just two arms of government, the executive and legislative; there is the executive arm, the legislative arm and the declaratory arm. The most important of the three is the declaratory arm. The Bill demonstrates that the Government are not somehow held back by the old principles of equality, equal shares and democratic socialism, which brought many of the Government's supporters into politics in the first place.I do not believe that the proposal about faith schools will be put into practical operation because of the associated difficulties. The proposal is in the Bill to create an impression. More importantly, the impression that is being created in the secondary field is bound to increase covert, informal selection. That is a fundamentally bad thing for the future of this country. I shall try to develop that theme in Committee.
8.41 p.m.
Baroness Walmsley: My Lords, this really is a terrible Bill. It is riddled with the fear of losing control and lack of trust in communities, local government and the biggest body of professionals in the country. It has potential for selection and discrimination and suggests a lack of belief that a public service can deliver high-quality education with creativity and efficiency without much meddling from people who are committed primarily to profit. I shall never accept that state-run public services cannot deliver innovation and efficiency, given a level playing field with the private sector.
I can hardly believe that a government of the Labour Party, with all of its heritage, could have brought forward such a Bill. No wonder many Members on the Benches opposite are looking and sounding very uncomfortable. I am tempted to say, "Tony Crosland, thou shouldst be living at this hour". I am also tempted to say to the noble Lord, Lord Peston, that we could easily make room for him on these Benches, at least for the passage of this Bill.
Lord Peston: My Lords, the noble Baroness's party is far too Left-wing for me!
Baroness Walmsley: My Lords, my noble friend Lady Sharp of Guildford ably expressed the reservations felt on these Benches about the Bill. I was disappointed to notice that the Secretary of State did not remain at the Bar to hear her. As my noble friend said, Parliament needs to introduce legislation to deal with a large number of important constitutional issues and with matters relating to the way in which government is run and is answerable to the people of this country. However, this is the moment that the Government choose to introduce a largely unnecessary Bill, which nevertheless will take many parliamentary days to scrutinise properly. It is vital that we do so in this place, because the democratically
elected House has had totally inadequate time in which to do so. However, I should prefer it if we did not have to do so.The noble Baroness, Lady Blatch, nicknamed the Bill as "The last ever education Bill" because the powers that it will give to the Secretary of State are so draconian that she may not need ever to come back to Parliament again—she will have all of the powers that she will ever need to control schools from the centre. I hope that the Bill is not the "Second to last ever education Bill" or a paving Bill for total deregulation of schools. The word "deregulation", as it has been used in this context, means the centralisation of power in the hands of the Secretary of State. The Minister referred to the fact that it will set schools free. Now where have I heard that before? However, that involves 180-degree spin because the Bill does entirely the opposite.
Local education authorities, which represent the needs and wishes of local people in their own communities, are being subject to death by a thousand cuts. I am beginning to wonder why the Government claim to desire more people to take part in elections when at every turn they are taking away the powers and freedoms of local authorities and putting them in a straitjacket.
The Bill will create a de facto national education system. It condemns the comprehensive ideal to the history books, it undermines the principles of local democracy, it introduces more selection by faith, specialism and postcode, it creates a two-tier system in which schools serving the most challenging and deprived communities are penalised for their poverty and it attacks the very foundations of one of our most important public services.
The Bill is also an attack on the whole principle of comprehensive education. As the noble Lord, Lord Hattersley, said, that has delivered unprecedented success over the past 30 years. As I have said previously in your Lordships' House, if the Government want a bit of novelty, why do they not try committing themselves totally to comprehensive education and to funding schools properly and believing in them? That would indeed be a novelty. The comprehensive principle has been adhered to much more closely in Scotland, with the result that Scottish education shows better results across the spectrum of ability than we have here in England. We heard from my noble friend Lord Thomas of Gresford, and the noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, about a similar commitment in Wales. However, we welcome the proposals in Parts 1 to 5 of the Bill to give heads and teachers greater professional freedom. But why ration that?
The Government claim to want schools to innovate. I go into schools every week and I find that every good school already manages to innovate, despite the tendency in recent years to specify exactly what they do in so many areas. The fact that the Bill will allow only 10 per cent of schools to innovate with their "earned autonomy" is not likely to extend innovation. Only the schools that please the Secretary of State—presumably
those that please her with the type of innovation that they are proposing—will be allowed to do it. Besides, that sets school against school and particularly disadvantages those in challenging areas. In a situation of teacher shortage, what is going to happen to those schools that already find it hard to get teachers? Are they the ones that the Secretary of State will allow to offer attractive pay packages? And where will they get the money—out of the books budget, which they need to compensate for the fact that the children do not have books at home; out of the buildings and maintenance budget, when many of those schools are already in a terrible state? No, my Lords, schools already have quite a lot of flexibility to vary the pay of good teachers and they do not need any more. What they need is the performance-related pay scheme to be fully funded. However, that is a matter for my Question next Monday, so I shall leave the matter for now. They also need the power to be flexible about the curriculum in order to respond to local needs with protection of a minimum curriculum entitlement.One of the problems with this part of the Bill is how one defines "success". We must challenge the narrow criteria of success involving five A to C GCSE grades, as is favoured by the No. 10 Policy Unit. Amazingly, in her introduction, the Minister claimed that the Government can find out how successful a school is at the touch of a button. That is far too simplistic. How can one measure motivation, loyalty and curiosity at the touch of a button? What about added value? Why is not achievement of added value in the Bill as a qualification for all of the Secretary of State's sweeties?
The Liberal Democrats have just completed a survey of 244 so-called failing schools; that is, those with less than 20 per cent A to C GCSE grades in the past three years. The vast majority have good Ofsted reports. They are not in special measures but they are trying to cope with huge problems. We found that those schools have three times more pupils eligible for free school meals than the national average. They have twice as many children with statements of special educational needs. They have more than three times the national average for unauthorised absence and 50 per cent more for authorised absence. On average, 4.3 pupils were permanently excluded from each of the schools last year, compared with the national average of 1.5 per school. Significant numbers of those schools are secondary moderns—the product of a selective system such as operates in Kent. Many of them are producing enormous added value but they are being measured in terms of absolute value. All are likely to be denied the freedoms available in Part 1 of the Bill.
The very schools which need to innovate and which need to offer radical change, especially to the curriculum, are those excluded in the Bill. On that and many other aspects of the Bill, the Government speak with forked tongue. That is why we on these Benches shall challenge the Government's policies on specialist and faith schools. While they are not referred to directly in the Bill, Parts 1 and 5 provide the over-arching legislation for those schools.
I hope that noble Lords will not misunderstand me. Liberal Democrats are not opposed to schools having a special ethos so long as they do not select. But we want all schools to develop their own personality and areas of special excellence. However, that should be for the schools to choose; it should not be for the Secretary of State to offer a limited menu of specialisms to a maximum of half the schools. Why should a school not be able to offer a community ethos as a specialism or a special needs specialism or a citizenship specialism? What about another category—a school which specialises in teaching children how to think, learn and make life decisions? Some of us believe naively that that is, in any case, the prime purpose of any school.
How can a Labour Secretary of State justify a system that puts a £50,000 price tag on entry to the specialist club and then limits entry to only half our schools by 2005? We on these Benches believe that all schools, excluding those with special needs, should have access to that money. Only nine out of the 244 schools in our survey had achieved specialist status, although many had tried. Naturally, they were attracted by an extra £0.5 million; but in the brave new world of the two-tier education system, they were denied.
I remain concerned about the expansion of faith schools. Historically in this country, the only way in which to obtain an education was in a faith school. That was yesterday. We are legislating today for a multi-cultural community of schools tomorrow. To promote an expansion of schools that select on the basis of faith is to deny the reality of the composition of our country today. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Baker, that the noble Lord, Lord Dearing, has a very naive impression of how admission to Church schools works and would work in future. I believe that there is more than one way to skin the equality cat than to open more faith schools. I consider that to be the wrong way.
The structure of our education system should be based on two key principles. From what he said, I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Peston, will agree with them. The first is equality of access to the best possible education for all our children of whatever faith or none. The second is a system which promotes racial harmony and understanding, not awareness of difference, ignorance and division. Expansion of the ability to select on the grounds of faith may achieve the first of those but, crucially, it will not achieve the second.
As many speakers have said, parents want not faith schools but good schools for their children. The fact that many are prepared to put themselves through a faith test in order to get their children into good schools and then abandon that faith vividly demonstrates the point. Perhaps I may now challenge two myths. Not all faith schools are excellent schools, and many state schools do promote a set of moral values. The Churches do not have a monopoly on morals.
I was delighted that the Church of England recently conceded that schools operating admissions policies which discriminate against non-Christian children or children with no faith are wrong. But, sadly, the Secretary of State seems prepared to allow that situation to continue. The Liberal Democrats will propose an amendment to the Bill that makes it unlawful for any school in receipt of state funding to deny access to a child from its local community on the grounds of faith or lack of faith.
My noble friend Lady Sharp referred rightly to the increased central powers taken by the Secretary of State. I agree with her very much. Nowhere is that more evident than in relation to local authorities. It is as if the No. 10 Policy Unit wants to abolish them but does not have the courage to do it. For example, by increasing the Secretary of State's powers to determine the minimum amount that LEAs should delegate to schools, Clauses 39 and 40 make a mockery of decision-making at the local level, despite what the Minister claimed at the beginning of the debate. Likewise, it should be the LEA's decision to close a failing school. Such a decision should not, and cannot, be made by the Secretary of State.
There are a number of inconsistencies, too. My noble friend Lady Sharp referred to the differences between government departments in their attitude to local decision-making. There are other inconsistencies. Schools can form private companies and can presumably operate commercial activities that LEAs cannot. Although their activities will be monitored by the LEA, such companies will be directly accountable to the Secretary of State. The Secretary of State can set up a commercial company to supply services and goods to schools but the LEA cannot. The noble Baroness, Lady Blatch, raised a number of questions about this part of the Bill. We on these Benches have similar concerns but we shall return to that matter in Committee.
Typically, the one area where interference would be welcomed is in addressing our teacher shortage. A key principle in any state education system is a sufficient supply of high quality teachers and their retention in our school system. Yet nowhere in the Bill is there a strategy to deal with the long-term retention crisis. Instead, the Bill sets school against school in the matter of attracting teachers. The noble Lords, Lord Moser and Lord Alton of Liverpool, highlighted that, despite the Government's claims of rising teacher recruitment, the total shortfall against target since 1997-98 in secondary teacher training is a staggering 14,208.
However, with the exception of paying off student loans, where is the evidence in the Bill that the Government are serious about retention of teachers? Why is there no statutory time off for professional development? Why is there no legislation to allow primary teachers more non-contact time? Why is there no commitment to a new teacher's contract? And why is there no national retention and deployment strategy? Do the Government not recognise that in a buyer's market teachers will be attracted to schools
which they see as offering stability, freedom and career progression, and that it will be increasingly more difficult for schools in challenging circumstances to compete in the new regime of the education ration book? We share with the Conservative Benches concerns about the power of the learning and skills councils over sixth forms and the side-lining of the wishes of local people.However, there are aspects in the Bill that the Liberal Democrats welcome. Indeed, much of the Bill simply consolidates legislation. We welcome the opportunity in Part 6, for example, to discuss the inclusion of a statutory curriculum for the foundation key stage and to open up discussion about the key stage 4 curriculum. However, I suspect that we shall concentrate on the 14 to 19 curriculum. I believe that it is a significant example of the "mother knows best" attitude of this Government that they are trying to legislate before the consultation on 14 to 19 education is complete.
As a party, we are extremely concerned at the marginalisation of the arts and humanities at key stage 4. We hope that the question of maintaining breadth as well as specialism will be explored later in our debates. That said, huge parts of the Bill concern us on these Benches. But my main concern is that this is not a Bill of equality of opportunity—a matter that was a primary concern of my noble friend Lady Williams of Crosby when she was Secretary of State for Education. I echo the concerns of my noble friend Lord Addington and the noble Lord, Lord Rix, about the position of pupils with special needs.
This Bill denies the ethos of the Labour Party, founded to battle social exclusion. It is up to this House to try to make a silk purse out of sow's ear. I hope that the House will improve it and send it back to the No. 10 Policy Unit from whence it came.
8.59 p.m.
Lord Roberts of Conwy: My Lords, we have had a fairly lengthy but lively debate on various aspects of the Bill. The bulk of the Bill relates to both England and Wales, but parts of it apply to England only and parts apply to Wales only. I hasten to add that that is not the reason why the Guardian described the Bill as a "rag-bag", but because it hands so much power to Ministers. The division of the Bill in the way that I have described highlights differences of approach to education in England and in Wales. I shall be told that that is one of the natural consequences of devolution, as children are the natural consequence of marriage.
I begin with the familiar themes in the Bill, themes that I remember being discussed and acted upon in the 1980s when my noble friend Lord Baker of Dorking was Secretary of State for Education and I had a modicum of responsibility for education in Wales. Raising standards in schools, increasing variety in the kind of schools permitted in the state system and ensuring that schools received their proper share of the education budget were high on our agenda. It will not please the noble Lord, Lord Hattersley, that the
present Secretary of State appears to have learned something from our Committee sessions on Conservative education Bills in the 1990s in which she was a regular participant. Parts of this Bill are based on the continued application of those innovative and successful Conservative reforms that instituted assessment of pupils at key stages and so on. I welcome that, but I detect a weakening of resolve, a softening of rigour in certain areas, which is regrettable.
- "The Bill's key theme is innovation: freeing schools to try out new ideas, to excel and to work with other schools to lead change in secondary education".
One can hope that such centralised control will not be a totally dead hand on new ideas and that the proposals emanating from schools and other qualifying bodies will survive the ever-sharp axe of the bureaucratic executioner. The noble Lord, Lord Dearing, put it rather more positively than I have.
Other themes from the past have been developed in England, if not in Wales: school businesses, specialist schools and so on. The theme that attracted most attention, although there is no direct reference to it in the Bill, is the extension of the Church schools concept to faith schools. Over the centuries, both Christian religions—Catholic and Protestant—and the Jewish religion have been active educators. We owe to them the transmission of the Judaeo-Christian fundamentals of our Western civilisation. Religious schools have been in the state system since 1944. Their record of achievement has been good and they have been valued by the parents who send their children to them.
Other faiths, outside the Christian tradition, that also set great store by education, now permeate our multicultural society and, in fairness—I almost said "logically"—they should be supported by the state where there is a clear local desire for such support, provided that they are not fundamentally opposed to the state itself and the democratic foundations that sustain it. Arguably, it is better to have them within the state system than outside it. I understand that there are four Muslim schools, two Sikh schools, one Greek Orthodox and a Seventh Day Adventist foundation within the maintained sector. I see the Minister nodding.
The social implications for the future of a significant extension of faith-based schools may be immense and must be carefully thought through, but we are a tolerant society. Without tolerance and freedom under the law, we should be very impoverished. We have to rely on the intrinsic benevolence of the faiths themselves to ensure a good social outcome. I hasten to say that that is a personal contribution and not a statement of the party line.
I should be neglecting my duty in this House as an Opposition spokesman on Welsh Affairs if I failed to draw attention to the uniquely Welsh aspects of this England and Wales Bill. Some 32 clauses apply to Wales only. We do not have a Welsh equivalent of the glowing England clauses summary but, thanks to the noble Baroness, Lady Farrington, we have a documentary guide to the Welsh clauses, and some of us have had the benefit of an oral briefing from the Assembly Minister for Education, Jane Davidson.
The Welsh sections of the Bill are the outcome of a consultation last year on a wide-ranging document titled The Learning Country, which has been referred to in the debate. That consultation ended on 16th November, six days before this Bill was introduced in the other place. It is hard to believe that any late responses were taken into account, but be that as it may, the Welsh approach which focuses on high standards, the removal of barriers, evidence-based policies, partnership and the celebration of the professional judgment of teachers, have been welcomed by the National Union of Teachers. That union says:
- "In the NUT's opinion, these principles are far more visionary than the arid notions of autonomy and diversity".
So someone is pleased by the Welsh approach, although I am bound to say that the ultimate verdict of the NUT on the Bill is that it is a curate's egg.
In the other place there were complaints of a difference of approach between the Welsh and the English sections of the Bill. At Second Reading Ministers barely mentioned Wales in their opening and closing speeches, and that has been the subject of complaint from the Government's own Benches. Indeed, the Welsh clauses have hardly been discussed at all and I take issue with the noble Baroness for not mentioning Wales in her opening speech today.
However, my main complaint is that the Welsh contents of the Bill have still not been discussed at a plenary session of the Assembly. My noble friend Lord Griffiths of Fforestfach is right. In response, it is argued that the Bill is largely enabling—I would say permissive—and that the Assembly will have ample opportunity to discuss the secondary legislation which will make the Bill operative in Wales. Is this the best way to proceed—for Parliament to give the Assembly a plenitude of powers which it may or may not use; and if it does, it may not do so in a way that Parliament anticipated? It would surely be better if we had a clear sense of the Assembly's preliminary views to guide us.
There is widespread concern about the extent of the powers given to Ministers in the Bill to exercise through secondary legislation subject to negligible parliamentary scrutiny. If this is true of England, it is certainly true of Wales. We shall not even see the secondary legislation that emanates from the Assembly. We shall have nothing to do with it.
The Education Network (Ten) refers to,
- "the vast amount of secondary legislation arising from this Bill",
- "it will be difficult for Parliament to debate the measures adequately, as their outcomes in practice will depend so greatly on the subsequent regulations".
- "there will be a further avalanche of consultation on the individual Statutory Instruments through which the regulations will be introduced, scrutinising and responding to which will be a major task for people already overstretched by implementing policy—despite one purpose of the Bill being to lift such burdens of over regulation".
What appears to be happening is that we are giving carte blanche to Ministers to do as they please. In Wales, for example, there is talk of abolishing tests at 11 as well as seven and of forgetting the proposition that schools can form businesses. The emphasis there seems to be on partnerships, especially with LEAs. Some of our larger schools could well form and run businesses that could support the drive for innovation and benefit other schools as well as themselves.
What exactly is to happen to the 14 to 19 age group is still a mystery despite the Green Paper and will presumably remain so until the Government announce their conclusions in the summer. But there is concern about the involvement of the LSC and its Welsh equivalent, ELWa, and sixth forms feel very much under threat. I note, for example, that under Clause 135 further education colleges in Wales are to be prevented from providing higher education courses without Assembly approval and are to be constrained as to the numbers on such courses. The Government's general policy is to extend and enlarge access to higher education by all possible means, and institutions have taken them at their word. Higher education institutions in Wales rightly pride themselves on their success in this field. What have the Assembly government now got in mind? What lies behind the clause is uncertain.
As one would expect, there are distinctly Welsh clauses relating to the national curriculum, clearly intended to ease transition from one stage to the next. Precisely how this is to be achieved is not clear. Special educational needs also feature prominently. There are questions, of course, about regional provision, particularly its accessibility. Wales is to have its own SEN tribunal to hear claims of disability discrimination against schools. I sense that that is right, provided there are sufficient cases to justify it.
There has been talk in Wales about a pilot Welsh baccalaureate. Such a pilot would be possible under the Bill. Although many educationists may favour such a development and the broader approach to education implied, it is important to remember that qualifications must be recognised and respected by
higher education institutions and by employers, not just in Wales. Qualifications that are not genuinely comparable with existing qualifications can be a handicap to a young person's progress in higher education or in finding a job.There is no significant reference in the Bill to parents, which I find strange in view of their critical importance. The Bill offers little to address the fundamental problems of low teacher morale and the increasing teacher shortages, with the exception perhaps of Clause 180 which proposes to pay off student loans for some teachers. One cannot avoid agreeing with the view in The Times that the Bill somehow misses the point so far as concerns teachers and head teachers. It represents a detached autocratic approach to the problems in schools today. Its ultimate answers to all problems appear to lie with the Secretary of State or the National Assembly. Local education authorities and the teaching unions are all complaining that they are left with very little discretion.
I find the Bill curiously unfocused; it sounds an uncertain note. We are bound to examine it very carefully at every stage and test the validity of the Government's approach.
9.14 p.m.
Baroness Ashton of Upholland: My Lords, this has been a wonderful debate. I have listened with great interest to every contribution. I have been pleased that, however guarded, there have been noble Lords willing to welcome the purpose and initiative behind the Bill. I recognise that I always should listen, as the noble Lord, Lord Dearing, has said.
I have been interested in the geography. We have ranged from the Soviet Union and post-war Germany, to Scotland and Wales via the USA, Sweden and Denmark. I have learnt that elephants cannot tie up their shoelaces, but they can dance with chickens. I have learned that what I am doing may not be equated—and rightly so—with events in Germany. I was interested in the Times Educational Supplement. The noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, says, if the TES is to be believed, that what we are trying to do is,
- "open to comparison with Gosplan, the Soviet planning ministry".
I was fascinated to hear the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, talk about his experiences of going to parties and being asked where his children go to school. I would say to him very gently that perhaps he is going to the wrong parties. That might be worth thinking about..
The noble Lord, Lord Lucas, who is fond of detail and particularly of statistics, made me feel rather squeamish for a moment, particularly as I am responsible for performance tables. Value added is something to which I am extremely committed.
Like my noble friend Lord Peston, I am pro-education, pro-equality and pro the comprehensive system.
My noble friend Lord Mitchell talked with great passion about there being no mention of IT in the Bill. I hate to disillusion my noble friend, but if he turns to page 54 of the Bill he will see that there are two such occasions. In fact, my noble friend is right: "computers", "IT" and "laptops" are not mentioned, but "information and communication technology" is mentioned in Clause 80(3)(b) and again in Clause 81(3)(b) in relation to the curriculum. My noble friend made the important point that the world that our children are growing up in—and the education that they receive—is a different world certainly from the one in which I grew up. I do not agree with my noble friend's analysis that the teaching media have not changed. Blackboards are becoming whiteboards.
As the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, has said on a number of occasions, we share a passion for ICT. I am well aware of the advances which are before us. Not only is the technology of a car now more advanced than was that of the "Apollo" mission, but those greetings cards that play a tune when opened are further on technologically than was the "Apollo" programme.
I was pleased that the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, mentioned the Carezone project which works with children in care and which I have been pleased to take forward within the department.
I could spend a great deal of time on the various contributions, so I begin my detailed remarks by apologising to those noble Lords who I fail to answer properly. I say at the outset, and I shall repeat this at the end, that I shall be available to any noble Lord who wants to discuss any aspect of the Bill. I shall ensure that officials are available also.
Some noble Lords began their contributions by talking about the timetable in the Commons. I have made it my business to examine in precise detail the Commons' timetable. Although I know that noble Lords feel that there were missed opportunities, I have to say that the Government made repeated offers to extend the programme. The first offer was made very early on, in the third Committee sitting and extra sessions were available. Despite that, I recognise the will of this House to examine legislation in detail. I am more than happy to go through this legislation word by word if that is what your Lordships want.
My noble friend Lady Andrews raised the question of the role of the school innovation unit in reference to the Bill, particularly with regard to the early powers—the power to innovate and earned autonomy. I advise my noble friend and other noble Lords that the unit is being established. Its purpose is to support schools with innovative practice. We have described it as an incubator for innovative practice. It will be made up of practitioners. I believe that they will make a great contribution.
I turn to the power to innovate and to earned autonomy. I want to spend a moment or two just clarifying precisely the difference between those two
elements of the Bill. There was confusion about that in another place and a little confusion here. Let me make it clear: the power to innovate is for any school or local education authority; it is not for the most successful only. Any school may apply to the Secretary of State to relax regulatory requirements for a fixed period if that is necessary to carry out projects to raise standards. We have created the power in this way precisely because we believe that schools in the most challenging circumstances may benefit from it. As this experimentation in education will directly affect our children, it is important to ensure that there will be a professional assessment of whether the project would raise standards. It should not under any circumstances be a free-for-all.We are saying that autonomy would be available to schools which meet specified performance criteria and that it can be applied only to issues relating to the curriculum or pay and conditions. Essentially, the purpose of the Bill is to allow that to become an automatic provision for schools, thereby freeing them up to be able to do that. As I said earlier, those powers do not allow the Secretary of State to impose anything on anyone; they will only allow her to respond to those that are put forward to her.
Several noble Lords, particularly the noble Lords, Lord Addington and Lord Rix, raised the question of special educational needs and inclusion. The Special Educational Needs Consortium has asked us to give reassurances, and we would be delighted to meet it to do so. However, I wish to record a couple of those reassurances immediately. The only permitted variation to the disability legislation would be one that would strengthen provision for children. In considering the effectiveness of the innovative approaches that are adopted, we wish that every child will benefit.
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