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I refer to the Rights Respecting Schools programme. If any of your Lordships have not visited such a school, I think that they would find it very inspiring to do so. I have visited them at primary and, more recently, at secondary level, at an Andover school. I have never been to schools where the children are so empowered, happy, inspired and engaged in their education. That is because they really are valued, not just by the support staff and the teachers but because they value and respect each other. That respect is built on their understanding of their rights under the convention. Their rights are very overt in the curriculum and, as a result of those rights, so are their duties and responsibilities to each other. It makes for a happy school, high-quality learning and responsible and well adjusted young people; and it can only be to the advantage of everybody that young people grow up in schools such as those.
That is just one way of involving young people and taking account of their views and, while it is one of the best ways, it is not the only one. That is why our amendment is not prescriptive. I welcome the fact that since we had our debate about this in Committee, the Equality and Human Rights Commission has supported our amendment. It says that Article 12 of the UN convention, which covers respect for the views of the child, states that when adults are making decisions that affect children, children have the right to say what they think should happen and have their opinion taken into account.
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The commission believes that this amendment will help to protect that right. So we hope that the Government, who have made great strides in listening more to the views of children and giving them their rights under the convention, will listen to the calls on all sides for this right to be heard to be enshrined in UK legislation. This Bill is the first opportunity we have had in legislation to put into effect what the Committee on the Rights of the Child called for in its report of 3 October, so I hope that we will take this opportunity.
Lord Elton: My Lords, I am not sure whether the noble Lord, Lord Young, is going to reply, but it rather looks as though he is. Perhaps I may take the first opportunity that I have had to welcome him to his new post and to wish him the greatest success in it. I hope that, by joining the list of people with whom he has to deal, I have slightly reduced the height of the fence that he feels he has to jump.
I apologise to your Lordships, first, for not having attached my name to this amendment and, secondly, for, with disgracefully bad manners, tabling an amendment after today’s Marshalled List had been printed, both of which I deplore. Unfortunately, three and a half of the past 10 days of my life have been wiped out by a virus. In the haste to catch up with other things that have become undone in that time, some things to do with this Bill have fallen by the wayside.
I support the amendment. It has already been demonstrated that the Government are under a legal obligation to include a provision of this kind in the Bill. That bears repeating: they are under a legal obligation to do so, as the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, made clear. I shall add only a grace note or two to what has been said already. The benefits of consulting children are obvious when they are drawn into the process, but they lie elsewhere as well. The noble Baroness, Lady Howe, did not mention the exercise, which she mentioned to me earlier, whereby an education authority consulted children about the architectural design of their school. It learnt a great deal of valuable material from it; in particular, ways of avoiding little secret places in which small children could be bullied by bigger children. Lower down the age range, it is very useful for a six-foot architect to be talked to by a three-foot child about what it is like to be in a room designed by the six-foot architect. These things are very valuable.
It is an opportune moment to mention that the Government are engaged with rather less publicity than one might have expected in a 15-year programme of pulling down almost all the schools that exist and replacing them. If there was ever a moment when children’s advice was terrifically needed, it is now, and this amendment, therefore, or something very like it, should go straight into the Bill.
Baroness Verma: My Lords, the amendment, as the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, pointed out, was moved in a slightly longer form in Committee by my noble friend Lord Elton. My noble friend Lady Morris then agreed that it was desirable to take the views of children into account, but sounded a note of caution that it
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We have argued, sometimes—quite rightly—at length, that one of the biggest obstacles to getting young people to continue in education is the lack of engagement that some feel. It is quite right, therefore, that schools and local education authorities make an effort to encourage such engagement. Of course, there may be concerns about giving a veto to mischievous children, but I think that the wording of this amendment avoids that risk. I agree with the spirit of the noble Baroness’s arguments.
Lord Young of Norwood Green: My Lords, I am sure that the whole House will agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, that the voice of pupils and young people is extremely important. This Government are committed to involving young people as widely as possible in matters which affect them.
We make decisions that impact on children and young people every day. Ensuring that their views are heard and valued not only has the potential to improve services for young people, as the noble Lord, Lord Elton, pointed out, but has a positive impact on the school environment and the local community.
Through effective pupil participation, schools give young people the opportunity to develop critical thinking, advocacy and influencing skills, helping every child to fulfil their potential. This is clearly very positive, and the Government seek to encourage it.
3.15 pm
The amendment, however, places a direct duty on school governing bodies to establish a school council or other mechanism and to have regard to the ascertainable views of all their pupils on matters that affect them. I do not agree that amending primary legislation is the most powerful or effective way of bringing about the improvements that we all seek. Research shows that more than 95 per cent of schools already have a school council—I can point to my own experience as a governor of a local primary school, where we have an effective school council that ascertains the views of its pupils. We have updated and strengthened guidance, which should serve to encourage the introduction of school councils in the few schools which do not have them and support those schools which run them well and use them as one of a number of ways of listening to their pupils. I echo some of the points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, who gave another example of an effective means of involving and empowering young people.
We have a powerful lever, which we should not underestimate, in Ofsted inspections. They evaluate how well schools take account of the views of children and young people. The value of inspection is that it involves dialogue with the school about improving where necessary and recognising its strengths.
Section 176 of the Education Act 2002 already provides for the consultation of pupils on issues that affect them. It provides for statutory guidance, to which local authorities and governing bodies must have regard, about consultation of pupils when decisions affecting them are taken.
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We have just reviewed and strengthened the guidance, Working Together, to help schools effectively to put the principle of pupil consultation into practice. Furthermore, we have ensured that school inspection arrangements assess how well schools take account of the views of children and young people.
The current arrangements offer a non-prescriptive approach, allowing schools to find the best way of involving young people. A rich variety of methods is being used by schools in addition to school councils. Supporting schools through guidance enables them to develop approaches that work for them and to adapt them over time as circumstances change.
The amendment would require all schools to consult all pupils in all circumstances. This is against our drive to free schools up, within boundaries—provided, in this case, through guidance—to take their own decisions. We want to avoid introducing a broad statutory requirement that is likely to cause schools difficulties.
I shall answer some of the understandable concerns expressed by a number of noble Lords. The noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, and all noble Lords who entered into the debate, talked about the legal obligation and the current provision not giving children the right to be consulted, as required by Article 12 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. We continue to embed in practice the spirit of that resolution in a meaningful way for children and young people. Listening to children is an important outcome for all children, in Every Child Matters. We are ensuring that Ofsted inspectors look at how local authorities, as well as schools, are doing.
It has also been said that we are not meeting the obligations under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. Although that has no direct legal force, and the detail of implementation is left to individual states, we think that the guidance is in the spirit of the convention and will provide a helpful mechanism in allowing schools effectively to listen to the views of their pupils.
There is no difference between us on the need to ensure that schools involve and empower their young students and pupils. This is really about whether we need something in the Bill. We do not believe that we do—we believe that we have enough effective powers already.
I could not help smiling at the two references to height made by the noble Lord, Lord Elton, as my colleague and I are a bit sensitive to that, being somewhat vertically challenged. He made a point about consultation on the architecture and design of schools. That is a point very well made, but do we really need it in the Bill? We think that we have demonstrated in what we have achieved so far, with the guidance and Ofsted inspection, that current provision is more than sufficient. We hope that noble Lords will take that into account and that the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, will withdraw her amendment.
Baroness Howe of Idlicote: My Lords, I am pretty disappointed with the Minister’s reply. Having done exactly what the previous Minister in charge of the Bill required by taking away the prescriptive requirements for exactly how the obligations should be carried out, I
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All I can say is that I am very disappointed, as I had expected a much more sympathetic response. I do not mind at all being told that certain words or commas are wrong and that the amendment should be taken away and redone, but we made it clear that children would be consulted in accordance with their age and maturity. We obviously do not intend that children should be consulted who cannot give any form of constructive reply that makes any sense.
I shall for the moment withdraw the amendment because, not expecting anything but warm encouragement, I had not even bothered to think in terms of dividing the House. However, there may well be a need to do so at Third Reading. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 11 [Educational Institutions: promotion of good attendance:]
Baroness Walmsley moved Amendment No. 12:
12: Clause 11, page 6, line 14, at end insert—
“(e) a city technology college, a city college for the technology of the arts or an Academy.”
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, in moving Amendment No. 12 I shall speak also to Amendment No. 13, which is grouped with it. In our Amendment No. 64 in Committee, my noble friend Lady Sharp asked why academies, city technology colleges and so on were not included in the Clause 11 duty to promote attendance. She supposed that the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, would say that it was because such a duty would be in the funding agreement, and so he did—that is exactly what he said. He also said that, through that agreement, they must have regard to the same guidance as maintained schools on improving behaviour and attendance. However, those agreements cannot be challenged once they are set. He also claimed that there was no need to extend the legal duty to CTCs because they are successful schools which already have high levels of post-16 attendance, and that was why they were not listed in this Bill. Well, if that is the case, there is no harm in including them for the sake of equity and completeness.
We have tabled this amendment again in order to emphasise the point and to ask the Minister why community schools will have a legal duty to promote post-16 attendance while academies will not. I should have thought that it was in the interest of all schools to do this once post-16 education becomes the law. This, by the way, is another amendment on which the Equality and Human Rights Commission agrees with us. That is a matter of some satisfaction to us.
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Amendment No. 13 would amend Clause 12, which is headed:
“Duty to make arrangements to identify persons not fulfilling duty [to participate] imposed by Section 2”.
We return to this issue because it raises the question of local authority responsibilities in the implementation of this part of the Bill. They are responsible for chasing up the young person who flouts its directions and fails to register for either education or training. They are responsible for keeping a register of all young people in their area and checking up on what they are doing between the ages of 16 and 18 and for enforcing the provisions of the Act. In Committee, we had lengthy discussions on how they might do that and the resources at their disposal.
As the Bill stands, the authority must establish,
the identities of the people in its area to whom this part of the Bill applies. Amendment No. 13 therefore adds the rider that that should be “possible and reasonable”. As the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, said in Committee, the Bill as it stands puts no limit on things. What is “possible” may be wildly expensive. Is the local authority expected to employ private detectives to chase children who may have dispersed around the world? Reasonable, he said, seems to be the right word, to which the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, replied that it was really just a matter of semantics. He said that,
The noble Lord, Lord Elton, who is no longer in his place, then responded by asking that the Minister consult his lawyers. He said:
- “Most of us are much more familiar with the use of ‘reasonable’ in legislation than with ‘possible’, and there may be advantages in using it”.—[Official Report, 1/7/08; col. 214.]
The noble Lord, Lord Adonis, promised to write to the noble Lord, Lord Elton, and my noble friend Lady Sharp on the subject, and the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, said that he would also like a copy of the letter. As the Minister was writing, he was asked if he would also explain the mechanisms by which a local authority was expected to track down all these young people. My noble friend has not received a letter on the subject and I would be interested to know whether the noble Lords, Lord Elton and Lord Lucas, have received one.
I return to where we started. What is “possible” is very open-ended. There are clearly limits to the expenditure that local authorities should conscientiously incur on such searches in carrying out their duty to identify who is failing to participate. It is therefore wholly reasonable that the words “and reasonable” should be added to Clause 12. I beg to move.
Baroness Verma: My Lords, in Committee the Minister raised the issue of good attendance while addressing Amendment No. 12, and we on these Benches agreed that it seemed inconsistent to list on the face of the Bill only some of the institutions that are to have a duty to promote good attendance but not others. When the Minister responded on this point, he made a somewhat less than watertight argument against the need to accept the amendment. He said that the city technology colleges,
- “and the one city college for the technology of the arts are, without exception, successful schools with very high levels of
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First, I am sure that some if not all of the institutions listed in the Bill will be dismayed by the implication that they have been included because they are unsuccessful schools with uncommitted and poorly behaved pupils; in other words, they cannot be trusted in the same way as the Government’s handpicked favourites. I hope that that is not the message that the Government wish to send out.
Secondly, the exemption from being placed under a statutory duty seems to be based on a potentially ephemeral criterion. These colleges are successful now, and their current crop of students is currently committed, but will that always remain the case? What will happen if that fortunate situation changes? I can see the loophole in that argument opening up before our eyes.
I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, merely used a poor choice of words to express himself. However, the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, is right to seek clarification. I agree with her that the two words “and reasonable”, which would be inserted by Amendment No. 13, would improve the drafting of this clause. It may seem a trifling point. However, as my noble friend Lord Lucas said when he spoke in favour of the amendment in Committee, simply asking the local authority to do what is possible is not practical in a technical sense. A local education authority could go to any number of lengths to establish the identities of those who are not complying with the duty; but not all will be feasible. It is right that there should be a duty for local education authorities, but it must be reasonable and practical.
3.30pm
Baroness Morris of Yardley: My Lords, I strongly support the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, on Amendment No. 12. It is time that the Government faced up to the problem of these funding agreements and put in primary legislation what they actually intend. We spent most of this morning saying that this is a flagship piece of legislation that will change the world and make life different for all young people between 14 and 19. It is essential to the economic prosperity and well-being of our nation. It is even more important now, given the economic recession that may be coming, that we make sure that this is as good as it can be.
Apparently, through all the debate, there has been a caveat that exempts 16 to 19 year-olds who go to city academies or other schools outlined in this amendment. I do not for a minute think that the Minister intends that this legislation should not apply to 16 to 19 year-olds who attend these schools; I would be amazed if she stood up and made that point. Presumably the answer is, “Well, we deal with that in a separate way, by making it part of the funding agreement”. However, there is no reason for a twin-track approach. These are publicly funded schools. Every penny of revenue funding for these schools comes from the taxpayer. Life has indeed changed, and the money that formerly was
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The second is, can the Minister give your Lordships an example of any circumstance in which she or a ministerial colleague would negotiate a contract in which abiding by this legislation was not a part? If she can, I would be amazed. The truth is, by not including these schools in primary legislation, she gives the impression that there is a separate negotiating business deal going on; that she is prepared to sit down with the funder who is going to sign the sponsorship agreement and talk to him or her about whether this legislation should apply to children in their schools. I do not believe that she is going to do that.
The possible answer is, “Why do this? Why not just accept the funding agreement? You have accepted that what I intend will be implicit in this piece of legislation”. There are two reasons. I praise the Government, particularly under the leadership of the new Secretary of State, for trying, over the past 12 months, to draw academies and city technology colleges into the family of schools. Minor legislative changes have covered the teaching of core subjects of the national curriculum and admission arrangements that were included in the previous flagship Education Bill. The Secretary of State has been clear that academies will have to abide by these good things. I cannot think why the Government have not seized this opportunity to build on this, by making this the piece of legislation in which academies and city technology colleges are listed as institutions to which it will apply.
This is about transparency. In primary legislation, it is transparent to all parents and taxpayers that this legislation will apply to children in maintained schools. The funding agreement is secret. I am not even sure that it is published. It is certainly not amendable through representations by the public. I do not think that it is even covered by the Freedom of Information Act, but I will stand corrected if I am wrong on that. There is no way in which the voter, the taxpayer or parent of the pupil can have an input. I find it difficult to think of any of my political colleagues who can make a case for it being acceptable to put into this flagship piece of legislation a secret funding agreement, negotiated on a one-to-one basis behind closed doors rather than openly and transparently.
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