Education and Inspections Bill

Standing Committee E

The Committee consisted of the following Members:

Chairmen: †

Frank Cook, Mr. Christopher Chope

Tuesday 28 March 2006
(Morning)

[Frank Cook in the Chair]

Education and Inspections Bill

10.30 am

The Minister for Schools (Jacqui Smith): I beg to move,

That—

(1) during proceedings on the Education and Inspections Bill the Standing Committee shall (in addition to its first meeting at 10.30 a.m. on Tuesday 28th March) meet—

(a) at 4.00 p.m. on Tuesday 28th March;

(b) at 9.00 a.m. and 1.00 p.m. on Thursday 30th March;

(c) at 10.30 a.m. and 4.00 p.m. on Tuesday 18th April;

(d) at 9.00 a.m. and 1.00 p.m. on Thursday 20th April;

(e) at 10.30 a.m. and 4.00 p.m. on Tuesday 25th April;

(f) at 9.00 a.m. and 1.00 p.m. on Thursday 27th April; ;

(g) at 10.30 a.m. and 4.00 p.m. on Tuesday 2nd May;

(h) at 10.30 a.m. and 4.00 p.m. on Tuesday 9th May;

(i) at 9.00 a.m. and 1.00 p.m. on Thursday 11th May;

(2) the proceedings shall be taken in the following order: Clauses 1 to 6; Schedule 1; new Clauses and new Schedules relating to Part 1; Clauses 7 to 16; Schedule 2; Clauses 17 to 28; Schedule 3; Clauses 29 and 30; Clauses and new Schedules relating to Part 2; Clauses 31 to 34; Schedule 4; Clauses 35 to 43; new Clauses and new Schedules relating to school admissions; Clause 44; Schedule 5; Clause 45; remaining new Clauses and new Schedules relating to Part 3; Clauses 46 to 57; Schedule 6; Clause 58; Schedule 7; Clauses 59 and 60; new Clauses and new Schedules relating to Part 4; Clauses 61 and 62; new Clauses and new Schedules relating to Part 5; Clauses 63 and 64; Schedule 8; Clause 65; Schedule 9; Clauses 66 to 72; Schedule 10; new Clauses and new Schedules relating to travel to schools and other places where education or training is received; Clauses 73 and 74; remaining new Clauses and new Schedules relating to Part 6; Clauses 75 to 97; new Clauses and new Schedules relating to Part 7; Clauses 98 to 101; Schedules 11 and 12; Clauses 102 to 135; Schedule 13; Clauses 136 to 142; Schedule 14; Clause 143; Schedule 15; Clause 144; new Clauses and new Schedules relating to Part 8; Clauses 145 and 146; Schedule 6; Clauses 147 to 151; Schedule 17; Clauses 152 and 153; remaining new Clauses; remaining new Schedules; Clauses 154 to 160; Schedule 18; Clauses 161 to 167; remaining proceedings on the Bill; j

(3) the proceedings shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion at 4.00 p.m. on Thursday 11th May.

May I say what a pleasure it is to serve again in a Committee chaired by you, Mr. Cook, and how much I am looking forward to the coming weeks?

Mr. Nick Gibb (Bognor Regis and Littlehampton) (Con): On behalf of the Opposition I, too, welcome you to the Chair, Mr. Cook, and look forward to spending the next few weeks under your wise chairmanship. I say to the Minister that, of course, we are here only because of the Opposition, but we are delighted to be here and we look forward to working with her and her team over the coming weeks. We have no problem with the motion, so I wish to support it.

Sarah Teather (Brent, East) (LD): I, too, welcome you to the Chair, Mr. Cook. I am delighted to serve under you.

We, too, have no problem with the programme motion. We want to spend time particularly on parts 1 to 3 and, later in our proceedings, on clauses 61 and 62. We particularly want to make points on admissions, accessibility and accountability, and choice, and we look forward to being able to do so.

Question put and agreed to.

The Chairman: I remind the Committee that there is a money resolution and a Ways and Means resolution in connection with the Bill. Copies are available in the room. I also remind hon. Members that adequate notice should be given of amendments. As a general rule I and my fellow Chairman do not intend to call starred amendments, including any that may be reached during an afternoon sitting.

Clause 1

Duties in relation to high standards and the fulfilment of potential

Mr. David Chaytor (Bury, North) (Lab): I beg to move amendment No. 96, in clause 1, page 1, line 7, leave out from ‘are’ to second ‘exercised’ in line 8.

The Chairman: With this it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments: No. 2, in clause 1, page 1, line 10, after ‘standards’, insert ‘of educational attainment’.

No. 58, in clause 1, page 1, line 10, after ‘standards,’, insert—

‘(b)   promoting emotional well-being,’.

No. 95, in clause 1, page 1, leave out lines 11 and 12 and insert—

‘(b)   enabling each child concerned to have access to such teaching and learning support as may be appropriate to his needs and so as to promote the fulfilment of his educational potential.’.

No. 186, in clause 1, page 1, line 12, leave out ‘educational’.

No. 3, in clause 1, page 1, line 12, at end insert

‘and

No. 4, in clause 1, page 1, line 12, at end insert

‘and

No. 86, in clause 1, page 1, line 12, at end insert

‘and

No. 87, in clause 1, page 1, line 12, at end insert—

‘(1A)   In subsection (1)(c) “well-being”, in relation to children and young people, is a reference to their well-being having regard to the matters mentioned in section 10(2) of the Children Act 2004.’.

Mr. Chaytor: I welcome you to the Chair, Mr. Cook. It is a pleasure to be here under your chairmanship this morning.

It is a privilege to move the first amendment of our deliberations. I want to speak in particular to amendments Nos. 96, 95 and 186.

The Bill contains many admirable provisions and excellent and interesting clauses that will, without question, strengthen the provision of education for children in years to come. We know that some aspects of the Bill are more controversial than others, but I do not believe that clause 1, which deals with high standards and the fulfilment of potential and clearly specifies the local authorities’ role, is controversial. Nevertheless it contains some points of detail that need further consideration, the first of which is referred to in amendment No. 96.

Amendment No. 96 would delete from new section 13A(1) the phrase

“so far as they are capable of being so exercised”.

Although it may seem a slight amendment, which may be simply a technicality or slight emphasis in the wording, I am curious to know why the phrase should have been inserted in the first place. I should have thought that most members of the Committee would consider that a local authority’s functions could be exercised only to the limits of its capability. I do not recall seeing this kind of qualification of a body’s capabilities in respect of the exercise of its functions before. It seems at best unnecessary and at worst perhaps tautologous.

Mr. Gibb: It is not just local authorities but all sorts of outside bodies that will now have a duty to provide education. I had understood that the amendment was intended to remove the words in parentheses because the hon. Gentleman disapproves of bodies other than local authorities having a role in providing education to children in this country.

Mr. Chaytor: That is an important point that goes to the heart of my remarks. We understand that in their original White Paper, the Government made a case for separating the commissioning and providing functions. Personally, I think that a powerful case can be made for that separation with respect to secondary schools. The question, though, is what are the implications of the phrase in clause 1? Are we saying that it is envisaged that, at some point in the future, the provision of education by local authorities will be withdrawn completely? The rest of the Bill does not spell that out. It takes steps towards opening up the provision of education to a range of different providers, but does not argue unequivocally that commissioning and providing should be absolutely separate functions. It is worth drawing attention to that, so that the Minister may clarify her vision of the future role of local authorities in education provision.

Mr. Rob Wilson (Reading, East) (Con): The point is just about recognising that local authorities have limits on their powers, is it not? That was the whole purpose of the White Paper and the Bill itself.

Mr. Chaytor: I think that it is about recognising those limits, but it must be self-evident that it is not possible to exercise functions beyond the level at which they are capable of being exercised. That is why I do not see that the particular phrase is necessary.

The second amendment to which I want to draw attention is amendment No. 95. It would delete the word “educational” in subsection (1)(b), which would then refer to

“promoting the fulfilment by every child concerned of his potential.”

The issue is to what extent the letter and the spirit of the Bill entirely match the letter and the spirit of the Children Act 2004, and of what is generally referred to as the “Every Child Matters” agenda. The whole thrust of the sentiments behind that agenda is that education cannot be separated from other public services that are essential in developing the overall well-being of children. If we focus specifically on educational potential, we will miss out on other elements of the “Every Child Matters” agenda, and we will not pay sufficient attention to health, general well-being and other aspects. I think that there is a case, therefore, for withdrawing the word “educational”, and focusing more generally on potential.

When I get the right piece of paper I shall talk about amendment No. 186. I apologise, Mr. Cook, because I have confused the numbers. I have just spoken to amendment No. 186 and I shall now speak on amendment No. 95.

Amendment No. 95 is perhaps more substantial: it links the promotion of the potential of every child with the whole issue of personalised learning. In both the White Paper and the Bill the Government give the highest priority to a major shift to a more personalised approach in the organisation of teaching in our schools. Last year, and again in last week’s Budget, they announced significant sums to enable a more flexible curriculum and more generous staff-student ratios in our schools, in order to enable the personalised learning programme to develop.

In the opening clause, and in the opening statement about the local authority’s functions, it would be useful to spell out in a little more detail the significance of the personalised learning agenda. That is the purpose of amendment No. 95, which refers to

“enabling each child concerned to have access to such teaching and learning support as may be appropriate to his needs and so as to promote the fulfilment of his educational potential.”

To bring my opening remarks to a close, in clause 1 it is important that we spell out exactly what the functions of local authorities should be in the new educational landscape that the Bill describes. I question whether we need to insert the phrase about the extent to which local education authority functions

“are capable of being . . . exercised”,

and whether in paragraph (b) we need to be so specific about “educational potential”. Perhaps it would be more consistent with other aspects of Government policy if we concentrated on potential as a whole, or if we went even further and spelled out, at this point, the five “Every Child Matters” objectives for the development of children. Also, it would be useful if we could spell out at this early stage the critical importance of promoting a kind of education and a more flexible curriculum that is absolutely matched to the individual needs of every child.

The Chairman: I am anxious to preserve the comfort and ease of exchange in Committee, so if Members wish to divest themselves of the their upper, outer garments, that will be permitted.

Mr. Gibb: I start by agreeing with the hon. Member for Bury, North (Mr. Chaytor) on one point—this may be the last time that I agree with him. The “Every Child Matters” duties should be incorporated into the Bill, and later we will come to amendments, proposed by Opposition Members, that do precisely that. However, I am not sure whether it is correct to put them in the place which he opts for in his amendments. By seeking to leave “education” out of clause 1, he is almost downplaying the education aspect of the Bill. Amendment No. 186 would take “educational” out of line 12 in clause 1, so that the duty on local authorities becomes a duty to promote the fulfilment by every child of his potential.

By contrast, our amendment No. 2 seeks to emphasise the importance of education by making it absolutely clear that the duty on the local authority to promote high standards relates to high standards of educational attainment. Without wishing to be too provocative at this stage of Committee proceedings, the hon. Members for Bury, North and for City of Durham (Dr. Blackman-Woods) are defending a strand of 1960s progressivism that downplays the need for children to be highly educated and that suggests that other priorities are more important. That strand of opinion is still dominant in the education establishment today.

10.45 am

I would like to think, and I certainly hope, that there is growing consensus between mainstream Labour Members and Conservative Members about the need for education reform and the need to resist the approach to education that has dominated policy for 30 or 40 years. There is also a growing consensus about how to reform education. Amendment No. 3 provides an opportunity to include in the Bill an approach that has widespread support, certainly among parents and the public.

In the last 20 years, a polarity has developed. The last Conservative Government believed that all the problems in education could be cured by the structural approach of grant-maintained schools, the internal market, local management of schools and money following the pupil, forcing poorer schools to improve in order to compete for pupils and money. By contrast, in that period Labour believed that the problem with education was the lack of cash and that all the country’s educational problems could be solved by a massive injection of taxpayers’ money. Indeed, in its 1997 manifesto Labour criticised the structural-base approach of the previous Conservative Government.

I believe that both positions are right and that both underestimate the problem. It is right that structural change has an important role. Competitive forces between schools have a positive effect in pushing up standards—to an extent. It is also important to look at
 
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models that give schools autonomy and independence to motivate head teachers and encourage the pursuit of excellence.

There is no doubt that more money was, and still is, needed in the education system but neither of the two approaches is the whole story. There is something else. It is not the third way but a third thing—I am marvellous at coining these new phrases—which is reform. I mean not just any old reform but a specific reform to tackle a particular problem that has afflicted the education system over the last 40 years. There is growing agreement between Labour and Conservative Members of Parliament on that issue. I hope that in time the Liberal Democrats will join that consensus.

The amendment would add to the list of duties that a local education authority has in relation to education

“promoting the transfer of knowledge from the current generation to the next.”

We propose the amendment, obvious though it may seem, because that view of the objective of education is not the established view in education circles today. It is the view of many good teachers but it is absolutely not the view of the educationists in our universities. It is the view of parents and, I believe, that of most Labour and Conservative Members of Parliament. It is not the view of John MacBeath, for example, a professor of education at Cambridge university, who is quoted in Chris Woodhead’s book, “Class Wars”, which states that he

“dismisses out of hand the arguments of ‘one [Paul] Hirst who wrote that teaching was about transmitting essential knowledge from one generation to the next.’ MacBeath knows better. ‘We now know,’ he writes, ‘that learning does not work like that . . . Far from thinking coming after knowledge, knowledge comes on the coat tails of thinking . . . therefore, instead of knowledge-centred schools we need thinking-centred schools.’”

It is that approach to education, which believes that knowledge hinders thought, that lies at the root of the underperformance of the English education system.

Ms Angela C. Smith (Sheffield, Hillsborough) (Lab): Is not the transfer of knowledge far more complicated than the hon. Gentleman suggests? To prove that point, is it not true that our children’s generation can actually teach us knowledge of new areas of expertise such as ICT? Is it not that straightforward?

Mr. Gibb: The hon. Lady is right. Young people are better equipped to deal with computers than our generation and older generations were, but that does not mean that we should not be teaching them the knowledge that previous generations have acquired. We let our children down by not giving them that information. The hon. Lady confirms many of the issues that I want to draw out in my remarks about amendment No. 3.

I remember visiting a school in Rotherham during the by-election there in 1994 when I was the candidate. The head teacher said that it was not her role to prepare children to do well at “Trivial Pursuit” quizzes. I believe that her comment shows a jaundiced view of education. Of course, it is not the role of schools to prepare children for a television quiz or board game, but what she said reflects a view that knowledge is not an important aspect of education,
 
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which, in the words of Melanie Phillips, in her excellent book, “All Must Have Prizes”, has led to the “de-education” of Britain. Chris Woodhead quotes Tim Brighouse in an article in The Times Educational Supplement and basically points out the same thing: such people need an alternative approach to education that does not involve the transfer of knowledge.

The essence of the issue is best summed up by Michele Paule, in her contribution to the Campaign for Learning, which is also quoted by Chris Woodhead. She says that

“the sheer weight of content in the curriculum model inhibits learning by restricting the range of creativity of classroom experiences, leaving too many students engaged in accumulating information which they cannot see the use of beyond school.”

She wants to discover

“a much more coherent approach to developing meta-cognitive processes.”

The Campaign for Learning says that the task of the teacher, or “learning manager”, in the 21st century is to “equip” young people with

“the basic skill of ‘learnacy’, or learning to learn”.

Pupils will learn how to learn if there is

“an explicit focus on the skill of learning to learn”,

so that they have

“structured opportunities to explore the cognitive processes involved in learning”

and are helped

“to understand their particular blend of intelligence and learning styles and how they should develop these.”

The learning-how-to-learn approach is one of the dogmas of the current education orthodoxy that lies at the root of our underperformance. Surely, the best way to learn how to learn is actually to learn and acquire knowledge—lots of it—while young and able to absorb it. Thinking is about processing information and knowledge. Creative thinking is about people discovering new thoughts and concepts from the knowledge that they have. Thinking in a vacuum is just vacuous. As one writer has said:

“We tell our children less and less and expect them to think more and more.”

Perhaps the hon. Lady’s approach to education is right, but let us debate these things in public, rather than among educationists in specialised conferences that rarely receive any media attention. Let us talk about it in public and, if there is a general dispute between one form of education and another, let us ultimately put it to the public to decide.

We might ask, “Who are we, mere elected MPs, with no track record on education”—I speak as a former chartered accountant—“to gainsay a whole industry of education experts who have created this orthodoxy? They are the experts. Surely they know best.” Like all expertocracies, it may be dominant, but that does not make it right, nor does it make it representative of the views of the profession as a whole. The problem with experts in a given field is that they are intolerant of opposing views. That is particularly so in education.

Over the past 40 years, those with an alternative approach have simply been driven out, with no promotion, job, research funding or tenure, but there are opposing views.

Mary Creagh (Wakefield) (Lab): The problem with experts, particularly in education, is that they tend to know more than we do, having spent time conducting study, research and analysis.

The hon. Gentleman is so eager that we should acquire knowledge, but is he not setting up a false dichotomy between knowledge and learning? Hon. Members who have come from an education background—I taught for seven years in a school of management before coming to the House—would say that it is about equipping children with the knowledge, skills and attitude for adult life, all of which are important for a child to be able to learn. The hon. Gentleman is ignoring a key point, which is that people learn in different ways.

The Chairman: Order. Interventions must be reasonably brief. In Committee, we can be rather more tolerant than one would be in the Chamber, but that was turning into a speech.

Mr. Gibb: I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her intervention. I see that she represents Wakefield. I went to school in Wakefield, and of the seven schools that I went to—

Mary Creagh: Was it QUEGS?