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Baroness Miller of Hendon: My Lords, could the noble Lord say whether it could just be that the Government's response was not sent to the press or to the specialist press—leaving aside the question of whether it was cock-up or conspiracy, and I accept what my noble friend has already accepted—because the report was so damning on their energy policy? I shall not quote numbers, but one section says that with the exception of the Government, hardly anyone thinks that their energy targets, set out in the White Paper, will ever be reached.
Lord Triesman: My Lords, as in this House there have been candid disagreements about the likely success of renewable sources of energy, there have also been candid disagreements about whether we should embark on a new-build policy in relation to nuclear power immediately. Such candid disagreements are reflected in the exchange between the committee and the Government.
Traffic Wardens and Parking Attendants Bill [HL]
Lord Lucas: My Lords, I beg to introduce a Bill to make provision about traffic wardens and parking attendants. I beg to move that this Bill be now read a first time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read a first time.—(Lord Lucas.)
On Question, Bill read a first time, and ordered to be printed.
Borough Freedom (Family Succession) Bill [HL]
Read a third time, and passed, and sent to the Commons.
Education Bill [HL]
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education and Skills (Lord Filkin): My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now again resolve itself into Committee on this Bill.
Moved, That the House do now again resolve itself into Committee.—(Lord Filkin.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES in the Chair.]
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Baroness Sharp of Guildford moved Amendment No. 125ZA:
"PRINCIPLE TO BE USED IN BY SECRETARY OF STATE IN EXERCISING POWERS
In exercising any powers under Part 3 of this Act and Parts 2 and 3 of the School Standards and Framework Act 1998 (c. 31), the Secretary of State is to have regard to the principle that, in the organisation of secondary education, there shall be no extension of selection by ability".
The noble Baroness said: We are now moving on from Part 1 to Part 2 of the Bill. On Part 1, we discussed the Government's consultation paper entitled A New Relationship with Schools, which was about inspections and the new inspection framework. The document underlying Part 2 is no longer A New Relationship with Schools, but the five-year strategy document, published in July last year.
We on these Benches are in agreement with a great deal of the Government's five-year strategy for education. We very much endorse the emphasis on early-years and extended schools. We like the emphasis on personalised education—which some might call child-centred education if it were not a rather unfashionable phrase. However, personalised education—which is the fashionable phrase these days—is very much about child-centred education. We on these Benches think it right that the child should be at the centre of the education provided for him.
We endorse the proposals on 14-to-19 education and the need to consider very seriously the education and career paths for the 50 per cent who do not go on to higher education. We are also delighted to see the commitment to staff development and continuous professional development and the commitment to partnership between schools. Schools should work together within a community framework. That is part of the essential vision that we on these Benches have for the way in which schools should work.
Where we depart from the Government in their five-year strategy is on structural issues. In some senses, the Government seem to be putting forward contradictory messages. On the one hand, they are encouraging all kinds of new structures at the secondary level. They want what are currently called community secondary schools to move as quickly as possible towards foundation status with a degree of independence from local education authorities that they do not have at the moment. They are encouraging private promoters of schools to come in. In again viewing local education authorities as enablers rather than providers of education, they are encouraging more voluntary-aided schools and more academies.
All of those proposals envisage a situation in which there are many secondary schools, but that is not always applicable in rural areas. Moreover, they endorse the view that competition between schools helps to promote performance. It is that conflict between competition and collaboration that we find slightly odd, and indeed we are not the only ones to find it slightly odd. I notice that when the Bill was published the Labour chairman of the House
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of Commons Select Committee on Education and Skills noted a degree of schizophrenia at the heart of Government on these particular issues.
As I say, we do not endorse the notion of setting secondary school against secondary school. We find it very interesting that the Government, who early on set their mantra as "standards, not structures", have now shifted so totally and put so much emphasis on structure. We do not share their view that changing a structure can have the effect of changing performance; indeed we think it often has precisely the opposite effect—that changing structures can destabilise already established structures and cause a good deal of time to be spent on unnecessary structural change at a time when more emphasis should be put on more important matters.
Those are the underlying issues that we shall be looking at in Part 2: the changing structures and changing financial position of schools and the changing ways in which the Secretary of State will effect these changes in structures. Amendment No. 125ZA suggests that we should have a new clause before Clause 63 on the principle to be used by the Secretary of State in exercising his powers. It suggests that it would be helpful if the Secretary of State were to put into writing a commitment which he has already made on several occasions that there shall be no extension of selection by ability.
The amendment picks up the five-year strategy and the degree to which the Government are trying to face in two directions at once. Everyone admits that the current admissions system is a mess—a point examined last year by the House of Commons Select Committee, which concluded that, in the current system, fairness is a matter of luck rather than a matter of course. In the conclusion to its report, the Select Committee stated:
"We believe that it is time for Ministers to engage in an informed debate about the role of selection in secondary education and its impact across the education system as a whole. The Government needs to explain how it reconciles its insistence that there will be no return to selection with its willingness to retain and increase selection where it already exists. Without an honest and robust engagement with this issue the Government's policy on selection will continue to appear ad hoc and without principle".
We are trying to provide the Government with an honest and a robust statement so that they can answer that criticism from the Select Committee.
The Government's response to the point, published before the Select Committee report, came in the five-year strategy itself. In his statement on the five-year strategy, the then Secretary of State, Mr Charles Clarke, said:
"Independence will be within a framework of fair admissions, full accountability and strong partnership. We will never return to a system based on selection of the few and rejection of the many. The strict national requirement for fair admissions will remain and we will not allow any extension of selection by ability".—[Official Report, Commons, 8/7/04; cp;/ 1012.]
That is a commitment never to return to a system based on selection and it is repeated in the strategy at least five times. I therefore believe that one can regard it as something of a commitment by the Minister.
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The commitment is also on page 44 of the document, which states:
"We will never return to a system based on selection of the few and rejection of the many; we will not abandon intervention in failing schools; and we will not cast aside our ambitious targets for schools to keep on improving. Independence will be within a framework of fair admissions, full accountability and strong partnerships that drive improvement".
The Government have given that commitment in their five-year framework. As I say, the aim of the amendment is to enable them to put their promise into practice—a chance perhaps for them to regain some of the public trust that seems to be eluding them so much at present.
The implications of that are spelt out by someone who, although one of their own, is also one of the foremost critics of the Government's current policy. Regarding that commitment on admissions, Fiona Millar said last September, in an article in the Education Guardian:
"This would mean quietly dropping the idea that new independent state secondary schools could set their own admissions criteria. But it would reinforce rather than undermine other existing commitments to put schools at the heart of their communities. And it would help to smooth the transition between primary and secondary school, back up the Children's Bill proposals for the most vulnerable young people, and, crucially, enhance progress on standards for the most challenging pupils by giving them an entitlement to the schools that are currently the preserve of the most socially and academically desirable".
The Government have made it clear that they are committed to their five-year strategy and to a policy of restructuring secondary education. As both the chairman of the House of Commons Select Committee and one of the Government's foremost commentators have pointed out, the commitment to fair selection should be a central plank in the planning of their third term. The Bill, which provides the framework for those developments, contains no mention of this issue. We believe that we are doing the Government a considerable service by moving the amendment, which would embody in the Bill the principle underpinning all the new developments that they propose. I beg to move.
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