Damian Hinds
MP for East Hampshire · Conservative · United Kingdom
“There are moments in debates like the one we have had today that are difficult to sit through and listen to, but it is the most immense privilege to be a Member of Parliament and to hear some of these testimonies.”
“Today is once again a day of heavy responsibility for all of us to decide on what we in this House call “conscience issues”. Many of the people who we represent hold strong and immutable views, and we hear from them. However, we represent many others who hold much more nuanced views and we are less likely to hear from them.”
“Members who support the Bill should not have their motives questioned, Members who oppose the Bill should not have their motives questioned, and Members who have reached a different conclusion from one they reached at an earlier stage should not have their judgment questioned either.”
“We have heard from royal colleges and other professional bodies, many of whom have a neutral stance on the principle but raise significant questions about particular aspects. We know from Ministers that there would need to be some reprioritisation of NHS resources, but we do not know the extent.”
“If there is the prospect of the Parliament Acts being used, that would increase the importance and the salience of the text as it is now. Today, it is reasonable and entirely in order for hon. Members to consider information that is available now that was not available in those previous parliamentary deliberation.”
“The Government have said, rightly, that the time taken to implement other schemes is not directly comparable, because none are as in this Bill. This is a free vote on a matter of conscience—there is no party line on either side of the Chamber. No one, I suggest, finds this issue easy.”
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“When we took evidence, I asked the Church of England and Catholic Education Service representatives about someone changing the definition of religious education. Colleagues will know that only one event in history is specified in the national curriculum, which is the holocaust, and no other. English literature is another sensitive subject. Boy, I can tell Ministers that relationships, sex and health education has its controversies—they will not be short of people banging down their door looking for changes there.”
“Spoiler alert: climate change and financial education are both already on the national curriculum, disguised in different subjects, but that will not stop people coming to lobby Ministers to do it for the first time. Ministers will get a lot more of those visits in future. During the passage of the Education Reform Act 1988—Gerbil, as it was known—the national curriculum could have been made more prescriptive, but self-restraint on the part of the Government of the day, and of Governments since, has meant it has not been. The key point is that we cannot guarantee that self-restraint into the future. In case colleagues think I am just talking about what children will learn in geography or science, I point out that there are sensitive subjects that a lot of people have an interest in.”
“There will be times when the Minister, like Ministers before her, will say, “My God, I am the Schools Minister—I should be able to determine what happens in schools.” That can be frustrating, but it is also helpful that Ministers cannot affect that directly. I would meet Education Ministers from other countries who said, “We’ve just changed the textbook,” and I would think, “God, I wish we could do that.” But we are a million miles away from saying that we have changed the textbook and every child in England is going to learn the same thing. By the way, Ministers will still get a procession of people asking for this or that to be put on the curriculum.”
“Although that refers specifically to key stage 4 and above, it also affects what children learn in preparation in lower school and junior schools. The Minister quoted Jim Callaghan and said that things should not be decided in a “secret garden”. Well, that is the secret garden: the specification that determines what is studied at GCSE. It is not, currently, a detailed national curriculum. Why is the looseness of the national curriculum important? Because the national curriculum is driven by politicians, and keeping the national curriculum loose has helped to keep politics at bay. That can sometimes be frustrating.”
“Historically, it would have been a lot about what was in the textbook, so textbook publishers play a role. In more modern times it is educational technology and platforms like Oak National Academy. Then for English and maths it is very much about what is in the year 6 assessments. At key stage 4 and sixth form, as the hon. Member for Twickenham set out correctly, it is really the exam boards that decide what a pupil needs to know to get the GCSE or A-level, and it is the same for other qualifications. That in turn determines what children have to learn. That is not the national curriculum but what is called the specification. The specification for a GCSE is about as close as we can get to a definition of who decides what children will learn at school.”
“Semmelweis detected, through statistical analysis, that the mortality rates in the two maternity wards were markedly different: the safety rate in the midwife-led ward was much better. This was relevant at the time I looked into it because of the hospital superbug. It is quite difficult to find out who, but somebody had decided that every child in Britain, or in England, should learn this story about Semmelweis, because that would promote hygiene in hospital settings. Semmelweis is not on the national curriculum. Nowhere does it say in a document produced by the Department for Education that every child will learn that. So who does decide? For most subjects in key stages 1 to 3, it is a mix of what schools themselves decide and individual teachers decide.”
“I first posed the Semmelweis question more than 10 years ago when I was on the Education Committee, because I was curious to know who decides what children learn in schools. For anyone who wants to know what the Semmelweis question is, it is: “Who was Semmelweis?” From visiting schools I realised that everybody under the age of 18 was very familiar with Semmelweis, and young adults and anybody under the age of 25 or 30 knew who Semmelweis was, but nobody over the age of 40 had the first clue who he was. Would colleagues like to know who Semmelweis was? He worked a hospital in Austria where there were two maternity wards, one of which was staffed by midwives and the other by surgeons. The midwives were women and the surgeons were men.”
“Even for local authority and maintained schools it has always been, relatively speaking, quite a devolved system with relative autonomy. It is not possible, sitting in Sanctuary Buildings, to decide suddenly what children are going to learn. Occasionally we will hear a press story about how the Department or its Ministers have banned Steinbeck from schools in England, but that just is not possible to do. We had a row a couple of years ago about so-called decolonising the curriculum. We had people writing to us saying that our national curriculum glorifies the British empire and instils all these negative attitudes, and I said, “Where? Show me where in this document it does that. It doesn’t.” It does not specify things to study in nearly that much detail. That brings me on to the Semmelweis question.”
“That is a question for the hon. Gentleman’s colleagues on the Government Front Bench. He is at liberty to table a written parliamentary question, but I think he will find that it is not possible to get a numerical answer to that question. We did, though, discuss the matter with Ofsted in the evidence sessions—I think the hon. Gentleman was there—and it is a broadly known fact, as any educationalist will tell him, that the vast majority of schools follow the national curriculum for all sorts of good reasons, some of which I will come to. It is not widely understood that the national curriculum has always been a relatively loose framework, including for maintained schools. That is the British tradition. There are other school systems in the world that are very much more centrally directed.”
“I do not know whether the hon. Member has a copy of my notes, but that is what I was just about to say. I argued on Second Reading that the ability of academies—which are now the majority of secondary schools and a large number of primary schools in this country—even if most of the time hardly any use it, to deviate somewhat from the national curriculum is a safety valve against politicisation. I remind colleagues on the Labour Benches that their party is currently in government with a whacking great majority, but it is possible that it might not be forever. We all have an interest in guarding against over-politicisation. As we have heard, and as my hon. Friend the shadow Minister rightly said, it can be an instrument of school improvement to ease off from some aspects of the national curriculum while refocussing on core subjects.”
“Lady is not trying to make my point for me, but if we make the national curriculum more rigid, we actually run into more problems, rather than solve them.”
“I am not sure that the hon. Lady’s Front-Bench colleagues will necessarily thank her for making that intervention. That view is held by some. Sir Christopher would rightly admonish me were we to get into a whole debate about PSHE or RSHE, but it is true that the RSHE curriculum covers a range of things that, rightly, children must learn about as they prepare for the adult world, develop their sense of self and their place in society and, crucially, learn respect and kindness towards others, along with valuing all individuals. There is also a degree of flexibility within the curriculum, because at the end of the day there are 21,500 schools in the country, and there are schools with different character and different intakes. I am sure the hon.”
“The crucial point is that, whether schools have innovated with an academy trust curriculum, decided to deviate to support individual groups for a period of time, or specialised somewhat, they will all be judged by Ofsted on the simple requirement of having a broad and balanced curriculum. For most schools the easiest way to comply with having a broad and balanced curriculum is to follow the national curriculum—but there can be other ways. Again, like my hon. Friend the Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston, I am left wondering what the problem the Government are trying to solve is.”
“It also means that schools might specialise somewhat, and that they might innovate without having, as my hon. Friend the Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston rightly said, to overthink about whether they are complying exactly with this or that specification. At a time when we are rightly concerned about attendance numbers, it has been suggested to me that making adherence to the national curriculum more specified, and possibly the curriculum itself being made more rigid, could be injurious to school attendance or inclusion in mainstream schooling if it makes more children feel rejected, uncomfortable or unhappy at school and so seek education either at home or in alternative settings.”
“I do not think those things are in conflict. My point was that the national curriculum, as it was set up, is quite loose. It did not have to be, it does not have to be now and it does not have to be in five or 10 years. It can be written exactly as Ministers at the time wish to write it. Although the hon. Lady says we are not debating whether to make the national curriculum more rigid, actually we might be—we do not know. I will come to that in a moment. I was saying—you will be pleased to know, Sir Christopher, that I do want to accelerate—that the flexibility can be an instrument for school improvement, either for entire year groups, for the entire school or, indeed, on a longer basis, for a nurture group or a group or individual who, for whatever reason, needs additional support.”
“If the hon. Gentleman is going to pose a great rhetorical question like that, he should have an answer ready. What is it? What is this thing that we are reaching for? I do not think any of us in this room is well qualified or well placed to say, “Where can we take this school?” The person best placed to decide that is the school leader. We would like to give some leeway and flexibility, within a system of all sorts of measurements, constraints and so on, for people to be able to innovate and do what is right for children.”
“Bless the hon. Gentleman for saying I am engaging, but I am obviously not that engaging, because I spent the first three minutes explaining why the national curriculum is the core standard and why it is central to our school system. That does not mean, though, that we cannot have some deviation from it, just like—if I recall this, I might bring it back to mind—qualified teacher status, which is, of course, a central part of our teaching profession, but that does not mean there cannot be a little bit of deviation—it is about 3% and has been for the last decade and a half—from it.”
“For all the reasons that I gave, it does apply. Ofsted requires a broad and balanced curriculum from every school, and the vast majority of the time the vast majority of schools say that that is the national curriculum, but some of them may innovate and deviate. They may need to do something different to support children or they may be in a school improvement phase. All those are good reasons. In a system where we trust school leaders and teachers to do what is right for the kids in front of them, those are all reasons to have some flexibility.”
“Sort of. It is not really a floor or a ceiling at the moment; it is a very loose framework that says, “These are the things at key stages 1 to 4 that one should cover.” It is not really a floor because it does not say, “You must learn these things. You may learn others.” It says, “These are the broad categories of things that you must learn.””
“Now we are on to modern methods of construction: scaffolding or a floor? I do not know. I will give way to the hon. Member for Bournemouth East, then I promise I will move on.”
“The Bill is going to be an Act of Parliament: we are not legislating for what happens between 2024 and 2029; in the absence of another piece of legislation to replace this one, we are legislating for all time. We cannot know who might come along in the future and decide to do something of which colleagues here might not approve. We do not have large numbers of schools teaching unscientific facts, creationism and what have you. We do have Ofsted, which evaluates all schools on whether they follow a broad and balanced curriculum. We know that, the great majority of the time, the great majority of schools follow the national curriculum, but some innovate, and that can have some benefits. Like others, I am left asking Ministers, what problem are we trying to solve?”
“In a very loose national curriculum, schools can innovate and so on, but in a heavily specified national curriculum, they cannot, because the floor is already close to the ceiling and there is not that much room to play with. I do not know whether the hon. Member for North Herefordshire is on Professor Francis’s working group, or what will be in the review document, but there are three problems with insisting on 100% adherence to the national curriculum. First, we are being asked to agree to it before we have the outcome of the national curriculum review. Secondly, Ministers are not obliged to adopt that independent review; they may decide to do something slightly, or more than slightly, different. Thirdly, they are not obliged to stop there. I say “they”, but it is of course not only them.”
“So far we have heard only the good stuff—the things we are going to add. In politics, it is always easy to talk about adding things. We are adding more creativity, art and sport, and those are all things that I welcome. It is great to have those opportunities for young people. The difficulty may arrive when we ask, “What does that mean?” Does it mean a longer school day, which is one option? Or does it mean that something else has to go to make way for those things? I do not have the answer, but it is a relevant question. To come back to the ceiling point—whether the national curriculum is a floor or a ceiling—it depends how much headroom is needed.”
“As my hon. Friend the Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston has mentioned, it has long been the case that some schools have not had to follow the national curriculum. Even under the proposals in the Bill there will be some schools that will not have to follow it. One of the reasons why I have been banging on for so long, Sir Christopher, is because I have been through a lot of these points already and I am being asked to restate them. I have to ask the hon. Gentleman to forgive me but, as I have set out, it is a broad framework, and there is nothing wrong with having a little bit of innovation within that. I want to come to a close. There are serious people working on the curriculum review and I wish them well in their work. We must of course await the outcome, not prejudge it.”
“It is a U-shaped graph of the performance of schools in England relative to their peers in other countries; it relates to the PISA study, but there are equivalents for PIRLS and TIMSS. The graph shows how remarkably school performance in England has improved over the past decade and a half. Nobody should ever claim that a single factor causes these things, but a fundamental vehicle for schools improvement in that time—alongside the hub network and established and proven methods such as maths mastery and phonics—was the ability for schools to convert to academies, and for academy trusts to spread good practice through our system.”
“Defending academy freedoms and what academies can do does not mean pushing down on maintained schools. I have had children at both, and I have both in my constituency. In fact, East Hampshire is relatively unacademised: particularly at primary level, it has a relatively small number of schools that are academies. I love them all, because they are places where children learn, but none of that takes away from the fact that the freedoms and flexibilities afforded to academies are good things to have. On the question of academic studies, as with grammar schools or various other debates, I could find an academic who could give us any answer we want. In fairness, causality is really hard to prove with these things. What I can tell the Minister, however, is that I have a graph. He may have seen it; if not, I will be happy to send him a copy.”
“Clause 43 will give the Secretary of State a power to direct specific actions to comply with duties, rather than just specifying what those duties are. That is what brings it into a different category. It is a much wider set of powers than we would find in a funding agreement. In principle, it appears to include the power to dictate how individual schools are run, which is not to say that the present Ministers would ever do so. I have two questions for the Minister. First, is there a mechanism to challenge or appeal a decision made in that way? Secondly, has the Department assessed how much extra work will be involved for it as a result of handling more complaints? I want to say a little about academies and maintained schools in general. There is no conflict.”
“For clarification, I meant that if a trust or a school had not followed its own complaints procedure and the DFE needed to intervene, that would result in an increase in the volume of parental complaints. The DFE does handle parental complaints, of course. I think that there would be an increase in the volume. My question was about the specific resourcing implications of that, particularly in a changed world with social media: when people get wind of these things, complaints could grow somewhat.”
“I have a genuine question, as they say on Twitter. Quite a lot of teachers and school leaders have asked me, what is the difference between people joining a RISE team and national leaders in education?”
“There seem to be a lot of narrative resets around in Government at the moment, but I must say that I for one was thrilled and refreshed to hear the hon. Lady speaking about school standards with pride. I was thrilled to hear her speaking about the role of year 6 assessments, phonics and multi-academy trusts in driving improvement. It is perhaps a good thing the Government Dispatch Box does not have wing mirrors, because not all her colleagues looked quite as excited as I was. I admire her bravery, but I say to her that with words must come deeds if she is serious about this. One thing she could do is excise from the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill those large elements of part 2 that undermine the freedoms and flexibilities for academies and academy trusts that have enabled such improvements to take place. Will she do it?”
“Should they charge for the bit that is not the 30 minutes but have 30 minutes that are free? That is perhaps not in the spirit of what we mean by a universally free service. If they have a paid 45-minute breakfast, would they also have to offer an option to just come for the 30 minutes and have that for free?”
“The first is, of course, to help families with the cost of living, and the other is about attendance. Attendance is an issue in primary and secondary school, but we must remember that it is more of an issue in secondary school, and it is more of an issue the lower people are on the income scale. That is why the national school breakfast club programme runs in secondary as well as primary schools, and why it is targeted in the way that it is. I also want to ask a couple of questions, as the hon. Member for Twickenham and my hon. Friend the Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston just did, about how the timings work and about the minimum of 30 minutes. The many schools—perhaps 85% of them—that already have a breakfast club quite often have it for longer than 30 minutes. What should they do?”
“There are many more breakfast clubs than that, however; it is estimated that the great majority of schools have some form of breakfast club. Many clubs, of course, have a modest charge, but if a child attending that breakfast club is helping a parent on a low income to be able to work, typically, that breakfast club provision, like wraparound care provision, would be eligible for reimbursement at up to 85% as a legitimate childcare cost under universal credit. That 85% is a higher rate than was ever available under the previous tax credits system. Some schools also use pupil premium to support breakfast clubs, and there are also other voluntary-sector and sponsored programmes. From a policy perspective, overall, there are two big objectives to a breakfast club.”
“I welcome what the Minister said about protecting the existing programme in secondary schools for a further year. My hon. Friend the Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston is quite right that schools and families will want to know about much more than just next year, but I appreciate that the expectation is that the certainty will come in the spending review. I hope the same will also be true for the holiday activities and food programme. Of course, breakfast clubs in school is not a new idea. There are, as the Minister said, 2,694 schools in the national school breakfast club programme, serving about 350,000 pupils. That programme is targeted according to the deprivation of an area, with eligibility at the whole-school level in those areas, and provides a 75% subsidy for the food and delivery costs.”
“I hope the Minister can help me to understand.”
“The details of the early-adopter programme talk about an initial set-up cost of £500, a lump sum of £1,099 to cover April to July and then a basic rate being provided per pupil. There is a different rate depending on whether the child is what is called FSM6—eligible for free school meals previously—if I have read the details correctly. I am not clear why the unit cost of a breakfast would be different between those two groups of children, but perhaps the Minister could fill me in. Even at the higher rates—the FSM6 rates—there seems to be quite a gap between that and £2.10, or the Minister’s slightly higher figure, when it is £450 divided by 190 days. Obviously, part of that may be made up of savings from bulk purchasing and so on, but it still seems quite a gap, if I have understood the numbers correctly.”
“It has, and it has also been very controversial in many cases for pre-school provision, as the hon. Lady will know. I also want to ask about the costs and reimbursements, which amendments 26 and 27 speak to. The Government, before they were in government and probably since, talked a lot about saving families £400 a year. In my rough maths, if we take £400 and divide it by 190 school days—[ Interruption. ] Oh, it is £450. Well, I am not able to adjust my maths live, so the answer will be slightly more than the number I give now. My maths gave me £2.10 a day. That seems to be somewhat different from the figures that schools are actually being reimbursed in the pilot programme, so I hope for some clarity on this point.”
“As ever, my hon. Friend makes an important point. My worry is that, in a couple of years’ time, when Members sitting on both sides of this Committee Room get emails about the funding pressures on schools—because, spoiler alert, there will still be funding pressures on schools—breakfast clubs will be one of the factors contributing to those pressures, if this programme is not fully funded or almost fully funded. I wonder whether the Minister will say on the record that it is his expectation that this programme will, like the national school breakfast club programme, cover at least 75% of the actual cost of provision.”
“We all share the objective of trying to keep costs down and reduce costs where possible. That is why we have guidance to schools on school uniform costs and why that guidance became statutory guidance. It is utterly extraordinary to talk about writing this level of detail about uniform policy into primary legislation. In our previous days’ discussions on the Bill, we have said we will come back to all manner of really important things in delegated legislation, which can be more easily updated. For some reason, this measure needs to be written into an Act of Parliament.”
“Schools should ensure that second-hand uniforms are available for parents to acquire”— and that information needs to be readily available, and schools should “engage with parents and pupils when they are developing their school uniform policy.””
“If the Chair will indulge me, I will just read a brief extract of the statutory guidance: “Parents should not have to think about the cost of a school uniform when choosing which school(s) to apply for. Therefore, schools need to ensure that their uniform is affordable. In considering cost, schools will need to think about the total cost of school uniforms, taking into account all items of uniform or clothing parents will need to provide… Schools should keep the use of branded items to a minimum. Single supplier contracts should be avoided unless regular tendering competitions are run…This contract should be retendered at least every 5 years.”
“What the guidance is saying to a headteacher is, “We trust you to be able to make judgements.” By the way, the Department gives guidance to schools on all manner of things, within which schools then make judgements on what is right, but it is statutory guidance, which means they have to have regard to every element in it. I think it sounds like pretty good guidance. It is comprehensive. Unlike the clause that will become part of an Act of Parliament, it does not just focus on one aspect of cost. It talks about all the aspects.”
“On the question of grandfathering, are we saying that from the moment that the Bill becomes an Act, the rules take effect whatever year in school someone is currently in, or are we saying that it applies to new entrants to key stage 1, key stage 2, year 7 or a middle school? If not, does that mean that a pupil already in school could say, “You can’t enforce your existing uniform policy on me”? Ordered , That the debate be now adjourned.—( Vicky Foxcroft .)”
“Member for Twickenham also made the point that the cost of uniform is not only about the number of items, but a mix of what the uniform is, the supplier price, the negotiation with suppliers, and the availability of second-hand uniform. Some schools will provide free uniform through a uniform exchange in certain cases. If I had to pick, I would contend that the bigger factor is the availability of second-hand uniform, rather than having one extra item. As I said earlier, many schools now provide that. I also ask for clarity about optional items. For example, with a woolly hat, a school may say, “You do not have to have a woolly hat, but if you do, it should be a school woolly hat.” I am not clear whether that would be captured by the regulations.”
“I do not know of any school that requires the use of uniform outside of the school year, so what is the purpose of that —what is it getting at? I presume that it means that there cannot be a summer uniform and a winter uniform, and not that it means one cannot replace an item part way through the year. First, it would be helpful to know that for sure, and secondly, it highlights again the craziness of writing that level of detail into an Act of Parliament. Schools are already obliged in the statutory guidance to ensure that uniform cost should not be a factor in school choice. Why not trust them to work out how best to do that, rather than have that level of prescription? The hon.”
“Why is it that Ministers sitting in Sanctuary Buildings think that because most do not have a tie, no one should be allowed to have a tie in year 6? My hon. Friend the Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston already asked, and it is also in the amendment in his name, why the Bill specifies one cannot have more than three branded items, rather than require the purchase of more than three. The hon. Member for Portsmouth North outlined a case where the school might decide that a good use of its funds is to provide an item. It might not be sports gear—it might be a book bag—but as currently drafted, the school would not be allowed to do that. The clause includes the phrase “during a school year”. That is peculiar wording.”
“It had been 32% of parents, but now it is up to 65%. My hon. Friend the Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston covered how the text as laid out in the Bill uses the word “branded”, but that includes not only where there is a school name or logo but if “as a result of its colour, design, fabric or other distinctive characteristic, it is only available from particular suppliers.” It covers rather more items than the lay reader might expect when talking about branded items. There will be a maximum of three branded items in primary school, and four in secondary school if the fourth is a tie. What have the Government got against ties in primary schools? I put down a written parliamentary question on that, and I got an answer back that explained that the vast majority of primary schools do not have a tie. That is true—but some do.”
“With deep respect, and I absolutely acknowledge the experience that the hon. Lady brings to the subject, there is nothing in the Bill to stop someone being charged £100 for a blazer. That is my point. It homes in on one aspect of the cost of kitting out a child to go to school and ignores the others. I think the advice is good, and I wonder what makes the Government think that they can come up with a better formulation than trusting individual schools to make that decision—why they think they can come up with something that is going to work for 22,000 schools. The hon. Lady says it obviously is not working. In the most recent school uniform survey done by the DFE in 2023, parents and carers were significantly more likely—twice as likely—to report that their school facilitated purchase of second-hand uniform.”
“Finally, for clarification, subsection (10)(b) says that, by way of an appeal mechanism, “the parent may refer the question to the Secretary of State” That is quite a thing for a regular parent to take on. No doubt the intent is some sort of mechanism to appeal, not personally to the Secretary of State, but to a representative of the Department for Education. Will the Minister say a word about what that mechanism is and how it will be accessed?”
“Again, I ask forgiveness if I have just misread this, but when we talk about applying to take a child into education otherwise than at school, I just do not understand how that works. Perhaps the Minister can help me. For further clarification, subsection (8)(b) talks about notifying “any other parent of the child…unless exceptional circumstances apply”. I wonder if it might be helpful to define a little more what those exceptional circumstances are, because one can imagine difficulties where there is an abusive relationship, and the nature of that abusive relationship may not be known to the authorities at the time. There may be an incarcerated parent or various other conditions.”