Bill Esterson
MP for Sefton Central · Labour · United Kingdom
“As the Prime Minister said on Tuesday, our energy supply and our energy security are not a question of having either oil and gas, or renewables; they are about both. It is a great pity that proper process was not followed in 2022 or 2023. [ Interruption.”
“I warmly welcome my right hon. Friend’s commitment to continuing Britain’s global leadership on climate action, including by going to COP31. I also welcome his focus on breathing space for people and businesses, but, as he said, it will take a lot more than that to deliver the growth and reindustrialisation that he is so committed to.”
“Last week the Committee heard from Claire Dykta, the director of strategy and policy at NESO, who told us: “Operational decisions are taken by authorised, trained personnel only.” Her comments were confirmed by Alastair Martin, the chief strategy officer at Flexitricity, who, in the same session, said: “I do not think the idea that the he…”
“As the Minister has just said, new nuclear is essential for energy security. It is also essential as an alternative career for workers in oil and gas.”
“Paul and Susan Robinson each worked for the Health and Safety Executive for more than 40 years. They have not been able to plan for their retirement since finishing work last year; they have been living off their savings and the small loan that they have had. They are typical of the dozens of constituents who have contacted me.”
“Hudson primary school in my constituency does a brilliant job. It is a family hub, it specialises in support for children with SEND and autism, and it has a nursery, but its building, which is 80 years old, suffers from a high water table that brings damp, mould and structural problems for the building—as does occasional flooding.”
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“The points I have made about exclusion and alternative provision using the free school model, as well as the anecdotal evidence that I cited of some children being rejected from schools because of their effect on performance data, are of great concern. I look forward to the Minister’s response and hope that he will understand why I tabled the amendment. Ordered, That the debate be now adjourned.— (Margot James.)”
“The structures available in multi-academy trusts allow for alternative provision as a main option. That is not consistent with the presumption of mainstream education provision in the 2014 Act. Concerns have been expressed by the Academies Commission that alternative provision is being offered by setting up a free school, to ensure that the children I described are not included in performance data. If that is true, and if the point about the likelihood of exclusion from academies is true, amendment 24 is certainly worthy of our consideration. I hope that the Government’s intentions are as good as their word—namely, the 2014 Act’s presumption of mainstream education.”
“The provision in the 2014 Act stating that mainstream education should be the presumed approach is definitely the right one, and we should consider carefully anything that moves away from that presumption. Amendment 24, like so many of the amendments, is an attempt to get the Minister to think carefully about the consequences of what he proposes. The last thing we need is the exclusion of disabled children, looked-after children or any children who might adversely affect a school’s results. Figures given to me suggest that children with special educational needs are four times more likely to be excluded from academies. If that is true, it is certainly a concern and would justify the amendment. I will be interested to hear the Minister’s response to that figure.”
“The Children and Families Act 2014 has an important presumption of mainstream education for children and young people with special educational needs. However, a concern has been put to me and to the Committee in written evidence that if a school is required to become an academy under clause 7 because it requires improvement or special measures, some children might be deemed to challenge or threaten the school’s ability to hit its targets when it comes to progress measures or more general results. That could lead to undesirable behaviours or, if I can put it this way, unintended consequences. I will be interested to hear the Minister’s response to that concern.”
“Amendment 24 relates to the situation of some of the more vulnerable children in our schools—children with statements of special educational needs, children with special needs without statements, looked-after children, children with disabilities and children with low prior attainment not otherwise covered by the categories listed in the amendment. Headteachers in my constituency and elsewhere over the years have raised concerns that not only academies but schools generally sometimes suggest to parents, “This school is not for your child.” Schools do that because it is a challenge to ensure that children with additional needs receive the education that they need to progress without affecting the school’s accountability measures.”
“Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak said, academies were never intended to be more than an additional tool in the box—an additional means of school improvement. The Select Committee was advised by the charter schools in America that these sorts of approaches should only ever be used in a small number of cases at a time, because that gives an opportunity to evaluate their success or otherwise. I only wish that the Government had listened to that advice, rather than ploughing on with changing many thousands of schools in one go. As the Select Committee said, it is impossible to know whether the changes have worked or not, because so much has been changed so quickly.”
“If it were, the Government would look at what the Select Committee found—not only our conclusions, but the evidence that we took from many people around the country about what works—rather than dogma. The Minister mentioned, quite rightly, the success of the relatively small number of schools—several hundred—that were converted to sponsored academy status, following the work of Lord Adonis in the last Labour Government. The Select Committee has looked into that. There has been sufficient time to determine that the Labour academies were a success; that they raised standards and improved outcomes and results for children at those schools compared with schools in similar situations faced with similar difficulties. As my hon.”
“They were dismissive of it and decided not to continue it in Knowsley and the Black Country among other places. My hon. Friend also touched on the importance of inspection and the fact that it gives the opportunity for improvement using a range of measures. It occurred to me that we have again come to the point of debating the difference between what the Government say and what they do on devolution and localism. The Government clearly do not trust local schools, communities and people to know best about how to improve schools in their areas. If they did, they would allow more than one route for school improvement. The approach is very clear and very worrying indeed; it is not evidence-based.”
“Before I speak to the amendment in my name, I want to make a few comments about some of the amendments tabled by my hon. Friends. My hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff West made extremely good points about the range of options available. As evidence, he mentioned the success of federation, school-to-school support, collaboration, school improvement measures, and different types of activities over a great many years. In previous debates, I mentioned the example of success that is readily available for the Government to draw on—the London Challenge. Its various iterations around the country were never allowed to flower when the coalition came in, in 2010. The coalition Government sadly failed to look at the evidence of London Challenge’s success, which my hon. Friend asked them to consider.”
“Will the Minister confirm that, if a school wants to leave, it cannot? The examples he gave were of chains in trouble, which had to be broken up because there were very real concerns from the centre. If an individual school wants to leave, I cannot think of a single example where that has been possible. In fact such schools have less freedom, not more, than they had in the maintained system. Will the Minister confirm that is the case?”
“Far from it. The Minister accepted the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak about children with disabilities and SEN not making the same progress as other children, whether in academies or elsewhere. That is surely why the amendment is so important. There must be a proper review of children with the greatest needs before any changes are made.”
“The Minister says that he does not want delays to academisation. Ofsted finally published today its report from three months ago about the Collaborative Academies Trust. One of its concerns was the failure to close the gap between the most disadvantaged children and everyone else. Does that not show that the rush to academisation is the problem? We need this kind of amendment in the Bill so that there is a proper review, especially for the most disadvantaged children.”
“I was pleased to hear the Minister praise a local authority for the quality of its support—I have not heard him do that often—but if Bristol or another local authority is doing a good job and an academy in that area is classed as category 4, would the Minister consider allowing the local authority to take over from the existing sponsor? The process seems to be moving in one direction only.”
“The Minister has forgotten what has been happening for the past few years. A large number of “good” or “outstanding” schools have been converted into academies. In fact, for a time, they were allowed to convert only if they were “good” or “outstanding”. If those schools end up in category 4, the logic of the Minister’s argument suggests that a good local authority should be able to take them over.”
“Does my hon. Friend share my concern that the type of warning notice that Lord Nash used for an academy, as he just described, with the items he listed and the ability to deliver on them within the timeframe he gave, might be what the Government have in mind for maintained schools? How would the 15 days that my hon. Friend is envisaging enable these things to happen? Things such as staff morale take an awful lot longer than 15 days, as he said. How will his amendment help to deliver if this is the kind of warning notice the Government have in mind?”
“My hon. Friend mentions regional schools commissioners. During our evidence sessions, a regional schools commissioner said that he had a very small number of staff and that commissioners oversee an average of 500 schools. That number is growing and, if the Minister gets his way, I suspect that it will grow rapidly. Does my hon. Friend agree that that commissioner’s very small number of staff raises interesting questions about how the provisions of this clause will be fulfilled, if that is to be done by the commissioners?”
“Did my hon. Friend think that the previous intervention was odd as a criticism of local authorities? If the criticism applies to local authorities, could it not also apply to chains and, ultimately, to regional schools commissioners if we have stand-alone academies in serious difficulty? It struck me as a rather strange comment.”
“I am curious about something that the Minister just said. He said that this improves the ability of local authorities to issue a warning notice. Yet clause 2(2)(e) says: “after subsection (4) insert— “(4A) If a local authority are notified that the Secretary of State has given a warning notice to the governing body of a maintained school the local authority may not give a warning notice unless or until the Secretary of State informs them that they may.” I do not understand how that makes it easier for a local authority to issue a warning notice.”
“The Minister still has not dealt with the point I raised. The Bill clearly states that the local authority is depending on the decision of the Secretary of State, as he said. I do not see how that makes it easier for a local authority. It seems to me that that is giving the local authority a massive hoop to jump through by having to rely on the Secretary of State first.”
“As my hon. Friend is talking about the use or lack of use of warning notices by local authorities, it strikes me that we have not actually heard from the Minister a justification of why warning notices are such an effective tool of school improvement. I would have expected to have already heard that during this debate. I wonder whether my hon. Friend would agree that perhaps we should expect to hear a justification of that from the Minister, alongside an analysis of the 51 local authorities and whether they are right or otherwise not to have used these notices.”
“It was interesting that the Minister asked about an appeal to the local authority. Does he think that that is a route to be explored, if he is concerned that using statutory instruments is excessive? Perhaps a local authority is the route to deal with such matters.”
“Is that what he is trying to do? If that is the case, he should say so. In addition to answering my questions, might the Minister also take the opportunity to say whether his true aim is to turn every school in the country into an academy whether it wants to be one or not?”
“I challenged the Minister on Second Reading and make the same point now. If there is more to this proposal than meets the eye, the Minister has the opportunity now to say whether his real purpose in making changes such as the increase in the use of warning notices is more than an attempt to unblock something that he claims exists but has not really been a problem—the delays caused by local authorities in the use of warning notices. That has not really been the problem that he is perhaps trying to say it is. Or is it something else? Is it something much bigger? Is the real agenda that this is a means by which the Government are trying to get to the point where every school in the country becomes an academy, but they do not want to say so because they are worried that that would cause real concern. Is he really trying to get that through?”
“Where is the opportunity for proper, informed debate and scrutiny around such important decisions for the future of children’s education in a school subject to a warning notice? Those are the questions raised by the way the clause is drafted; and those are the questions that my hon. Friends were trying to tease out with their amendments. I am afraid they are questions that remain unanswered so far. I live in hope for when the Minister comes to respond, as everybody else has said. He is a decent and honourable man, whom we all like. We like him dearly. I am sure that, even without all these compliments, he would want to answer the questions being raised. Unless he does, the question remains about the real purpose of the proposed changes in clause 2 and elsewhere in the Bill.”
“Listening to the Government over five years—and I do not think it was just the Liberal Democrat influence on the Conservatives—I thought the Government were committed to the concept of localism. The Government went on and on about localism and its importance. Yet with academisation, we have had a centralising tendency, taking everything to the desk of the Secretary of State, which is not alleviated by having regional schools commissioners. Measures such as those in clause 2 would reduce localism further because they would take away the opportunity for consultation and the right to appeal. Where are the checks and balances? Where is the local knowledge being fed in to decisions about whether a warning notice is required?”
“Where is the evidence of success in the use of warning notices—not just the individual case studies, but where are the data backing up the success of warning notices that justify a whole clause? They may well exist. I am not against the use of warning notices but, given the importance attached to them and the fact that they are so crucial that they take up a whole clause, I would expect the Minister to justify their use per se and why he has found it necessary to amend it. Perhaps he could deal with that point. We also heard hon. Members ask whether the change to speed up the direct intervention by the Secretary of State by using regional schools commissioners is justified. That would increase the tendency to centralise decision making and involvement in local schools.”
“When the Education Committee looked at the evidence over many years, it found that activities such as the London Challenge had produced sustained, measurable and long-term improvement in schools. When that was rolled out around the country, there was the start of a big process of sustainable school improvement. The Committee did not find that, so far, that is true when it comes to academies as a whole. The other thing I was hoping to hear about in this part of the discussion was what it is about warning notices that really makes a difference. I intervened briefly on my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff West on that point earlier. I hoped that the Minister would pick up the point, so perhaps he can do so when he responds.”
“From the evidence taken and in the stand part debate so far, we have heard that there has been limited use of the power of issuing a warning notice by local authorities. We have heard scant evidence that the local authorities have been wrong to use that power only sparingly. The Minister spoke about what happened in Coventry, which he thought was an example of a local authority dragging its feet. However, that turned out not to be the case; it was anything but, given that there had been a better way of improving the school and resolving the issues that had led to concern in the first place. This one example did not stack up; it did not provide the evidence that the Minister hoped it would. Indeed, there are many other forms of school improvement.”
“We produced a report on academies and free schools. We took evidence and travelled around the country; we got out of this place, as the Minister said that we should. We spoke to schools and took written and oral evidence right across the schools estate. We took a lot of advice; it was a very thorough inquiry. What did we conclude? We concluded: “Current evidence does not allow us to draw conclusions on whether academies in themselves are a positive force for change.” What did we mean by that? We meant that it is too early to say that academisation in itself is the way to improve schools. We left open the possibility that there are other ways forward, and it is important that that point is taken on board. It is crucial that the evidence is considered when creating legislation.”
“We heard evidence last week that the only way to improve schools is by academisation. However, we heard that from the chief executive of a chain of academies; we did not hear it from anybody else. It is not surprising that the chief executive of an academy chain would say that, or that other people take the view that there are other routes to improve schools. As my hon. Friend just said, the clause is about speeding up the process of academisation by removing some of the barriers; by removing the opportunity for people to appeal or slow down the process when the Government decide that it is appropriate for a school to become an academy. As several hon. Members have already said, we should look at the evidence. I served on the Education Committee in the last Parliament and we did just that.”
“On the point about so-called increased autonomy, the Education Committee heard evidence that schools that are in chains now have less autonomy than they did when they were maintained. How does the Minister explain that as a localism success?”
“My hon. Friend is right. I am reminded of the Labour party’s attempt to get the Office for Budget Responsibility to scrutinise the budget plans of all the parties before the election. Does my hon. Friend agree that there is a similar reluctance now to look at evidence? Does he also agree that there is a danger of the Hawthorne effect? Early examples of new initiatives tend to attract the very best people and, therefore, have better outcomes than over time. Statistical analysis should be carried out over an extended period before any conclusions are reached.”
“In the Education Committee report, there was a Sutton Trust comment that, “most [chains] are not achieving distinctive outcomes compared to mainstream schools”. My hon. Friend is right that the best are doing best, but overall I am afraid that the evidence was not there. That is what the Select Committee found, and that is what it reported.”
“13. What recent assessment he has made of the implications for his policies of guidance from the chief medical officer on the consumption of alcohol by pregnant women.”
“I thank the Minister for her answer and remind Members that 7,000 children are damaged every year from irreversible brain damage as a result of alcohol consumed by their mothers during pregnancy. I urge the Minister please to clear up the confusion in the advice available to pregnant women at the moment, which on the one hand says, “Do not drink at all”; and on the other hand says, “If you do drink, have only one or two units”.”
“Both reporting and fighting crime have become much harder in Merseyside now there are 600 fewer police officers since the Minister’s Government came to power. Is not the real guilty party when it comes to running down the police the Minister and his colleagues, who have run down police numbers and taken away their ability to fight crime?”
“The Chancellor has been asked a number of times about the worst-case scenario for this country as a result of the crisis. Can he spell out what that would look like for the people of this country?”
“Those consortia fulfil the functions referred to in new section 3ZA(1) and detailed in new section 3ZA(3)—the recruitment and assessment of persons as prospective adopters, the approval of prospective adopters, the crucial decisions about matching adopters with children placed for adoption, and, as we heard in evidence, the crucial support for adoptive families after placements have been made. The question that readily springs to mind from my hon. Friend’s comments and the evidence that we heard on Tuesday is, if good practice is already in place, why do we need to go as far as to allow the Minister or his successors to give directions?”
“I served with him on the Committee that considered the Children and Families Bill in the previous Parliament, which discussed many measures to improve the outcomes for looked-after children and to improve adoption, and we have discussed such measures on other occasions. Like my hon. Friend, I am curious to know why the Minister feels it necessary to have the power in clause 13 to give directions, rather than to make orders as the amendment suggests. As we have heard in the evidence sessions and as we have seen in the written evidence, there is already very good practice around the country. For many years organisations have formed consortia that address the issues referred to in clause 13.”
“It is a pleasure, as ever, to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Chope. I look forward to our deliberations over the next couple of weeks. As my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak has said, the amendments raise the question why the powers are needed. Like him, I have every faith in the Minister. He has been an excellent Minister for Children and Families for several years. He brings to the role a great deal of expertise in both a professional and personal capacity. Everybody in the sector and in this Parliament would acknowledge his good will on this subject and on many others.”
“We heard in evidence some of the concerns picked up by consortia throughout the country, which included the challenge of finding suitable prospective adopters for children who are not in the same geographical location, with all the potential difficulties that arise from not being near to the birth family or others once an adoption placement is made and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak said, the dangers of interrupting existing good practice. To return to his intervention, without wishing to risk a further intervention from the hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton—”
“Some of those who gave oral evidence on Tuesday made a similar point. They were concerned that directing changes when existing arrangements were working well and to the benefit of children coming forward for placement could undermine those children’s quality of placement and indeed their life chances. We therefore need to tread extremely carefully. I suspect that that explains why the Minister and others have said that they are aware of that danger and, therefore, they do not intend to use those provisions. If they do not intend to use them, why put them in the Bill in the first place?”
“As long as he does not charge me, I will be more than happy. Without risking a further intervention or wanting to challenge his legal expertise or that of the other lawyers in the room—”
“It is important to ensure that a child has the certainty of permanence, and any delay is to be avoided as much as possible.”
“It is amazing how many lawyers find their way into this place, but it is probably time to move on from criticising the legal profession. My hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff West made the important point that we should avoid delays by any means—let alone the risk of judicial review—given the importance of permanence, of the attachment of young people coming into the care system and of the need to make swift decisions about where a child should be placed and whether every effort should be made to keep them with their birth parents or within the extended family, or whether another form of permanence is right for them. Coming back to the Children and Families Act 2014, one thing that the Minister has rightly focused on in his efforts over the past few years is increasing the speed of decision making.”
“My hon. Friend is right. Every effort should be made to ensure that existing good arrangements are kept in place and are not disturbed, that any changes are an improvement on existing arrangements and in particular that good practice—there is much good practice around the country and internationally—is shared so far as is possible. Through that, we can keep in mind what I am sure everyone on the Committee and in the sector is committed to: doing the right thing for the children who come into the care system, whether that is adoption or other forms of permanence.”
“I agree with the Minister—there is wide variation and we clearly need to improve quality. How often does he envisage applying the clause? Earlier, he said that it was not his intention to use it very much at all, so will he give us a sense of how often he thinks he will use it?”
“I am glad that my hon. Friend has returned to the issue of getting the right form of permanence for children in care. We heard in both written and oral evidence that not only should we be considering all forms of permanence but that there should be a move towards a less fixed form of adoption and fostering, perhaps with less distinction between the two. Some of that was partly discussed with reference to opportunities such as concurrent planning and fostering to adopt. What is his view on those ideas?”
“As Andy Leary-May told us on Tuesday, “unless we address the problems that exist…the children with the most complex needs may wait longer to find a suitable placement.” –– [ Official Report, Education and Adoption Public Bill Committee, 30 June 2015; c. 56, Q23.]”
“We do not want a repetition of the experience in Wales where smaller agencies were pushed out by local authorities. What assessment have the Government made of the potential impact of voluntary agencies becoming unviable and being unable to serve children’s best interests? Such questions need to be answered. The debate on amendment 13 is an appropriate place to look at the suitability of the adoption system for finding placements for particularly vulnerable children, such as those with disabilities, older children, sibling groups and children from black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds. I hope that the Minister can tell us more about how his proposals will help with the placement of hard-to-place children.”