Skills and Post-16 Education Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2021-07-19
Topic: Education
James Donnelly Touhig (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, this is very much a probing amendment, allowing me to highlight a particular unintended consequence in existing legislation and allowing the Minister the opportunity to give what I hope is an encouraging response Representatives of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference have been working the Minister’s officials on this issue for some considerable time in anticipation that there would be some education legislation going through Parliament where an amendment can be made to resolve the problem that I will now outline. As things stand today, Catholic sixth-form colleges benefit from several protections set out in the Further and Higher Education Act 1992 relating to issues such as governance, collective worship, religious education and many others. These protections are vital for maintaining the Catholic ethos of the colleges and provide a choice for those who wish to be educated in a religious setting Any sixth-form college can become a 16 to 19 academy. However, the definition of "school" in the Education Act 1996, as amended by the Education Act 2011, excludes 16 to 19 academies, which means that they are currently ineligible for the protections and freedoms needed to remain Catholic. If a Catholic sixth-form college were to become a 16 to 19 academy, it would therefore lose those protections and freedoms Catholic dioceses across England that oversee schools and colleges have strategies to bring the Catholic community together by creating families of schools within multi-academy trusts. This supports the schools to work in partnership and share resources. Many other sixth-form colleges around the country have now converted and are benefiting from the advantages of academy status, and the 14 Catholic sixth-form colleges across England wish to do the same. Without being able to become academies, the Catholic sixth-form colleges are isolated from the opportunities of joining a multi-academy trust. Allow me to quote Danny Pearson, principal of Aquinas College in Stockport and chair of the Association of Catholic Sixth Form Colleges: "We are disappointed that Catholic Colleges are unable to take part in the school improvement and systems leadership processes that the Academy system champions. Many of our settings are in areas of high deprivation and Catholic colleges do much for social mobility. As leading performers within our sector, we currently cannot use our expertise for the benefit of our communities. As a matter of fairness, equity and parity across our education system it is important that measures are quickly taken to allow Catholic sixth-form colleges to both maintain the statutory protections they currently hold while being able to become academies if they so wish." This amendment to the Bill would empower the Secretary of State to allow sixth-form college corporations to convert to academies without losing their current statutory protections. This will guarantee the religious character of the Catholic sixth-form colleges when they convert, and enable dioceses to include these new sixth-form academies within their strategic planning of Catholic multi-academy trusts.