Schools Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2022-06-22
Topic: Education
Diana Barran (Conservative, Centre-right): I would be delighted to do that I was talking about how institutions might be operating separately but effectively as one institution. The evidence Ofsted might use to establish that could relate to individuals acting in concert or other evidence of links between the activities, such as the same pupils being educated on different premises. Clause 63 is intended to enhance Ofsted’s powers of inspection in these circumstances. This could include the investigation of so-called "tapestry schools", with which the noble Lord is rightly concerned. In brief, we believe that those loopholes are closed As I explained, we do not believe it appropriate to regulate part-time settings until we have considered the response to the call for evidence on unregistered alternative provision. However, as we have discussed at length, parents have a duty to ensure that their children who are of compulsory school age receive a suitable full-time education. As we know from our earlier debates, local authorities can check this, and where a parent cannot demonstrate that the settings a child attends provide a suitable education, a school attendance order could of course be issued. A parent who sends their child to a different setting that provides only a narrow religious education with no secular education each weekday is very unlikely to be ensuring that their child receives a suitable full-time education, which I think is the point the noble Lord is rightly concerned about. I would be delighted to meet with the noble Baroness and the noble Lord to work through some of these examples in detail to assure them that we are meeting the spirit of their amendments Amendment 154 from the noble Baronesses, Lady Chapman, would remove the charitable status of independent educational institutions. When the noble Baroness talked about a change of tone, I thought for a minute that we were going to go to a certain place, but I thank her for the very measured way in which she made her case Independent schools that are charities are already obliged to show public benefit, as the noble Baroness acknowledged. She questioned the strength of that, but we are concerned that we should avoid piecemeal reform of charity law, aimed at only one group of charities. The amendment risks creating pressure to extend the removal of charitable status to other sectors. All charities must exist for public benefit, but they are not required to serve the whole public. It is not clear why this principle should change for one group, namely independent schools, and not for other charities As my noble friend Lord Lexden explained better than I can and with much greater experience, 85% of independent school council members are already involved in cross-sector working. I have met with a number of schools that are in different partnerships. I think there is a real sense of mutual benefit for the private schools and state-funded schools working together. I know that the noble Baroness and the Government will not agree on this point, but we see independent schools as an asset in our school system. Our responsibility is to make sure they fulfil their charitable purpose and that we use that asset to maximum benefit Finally, on Amendment 171G, also from the noble Baroness, Lady Chapman, schools are already under a statutory duty to act in accordance with the arrangements set out by local safeguarding partners. The noble Baroness will remember the recommendations made in Sir Alan Wood’s report following the review of multi-agency safeguarding arrangements. The Government legislated in the Children and Social Work Act 2017 to remove the requirement for local authorities to establish local safeguarding children’s boards. The 2004 Children Act was then amended by the 2017 Act to include provisions relating to those three safeguarding partners—the local authority, police and health—including a duty to make arrangements for them and any appropriate relevant agencies to work together to deliver their safeguarding functions. So there is some history here that we need to remember and take into consideration. The noble Baroness is absolutely right to point out that the independent review included a recommendation to make schools a statutory safeguarding partner. It is something that needs proper consideration and to which we will respond in our implementation strategy later this year I therefore ask my noble friend Lord Lucas to withdraw his Amendment 146A and I ask other noble Lords not to move the amendments in their names.