Baroness Spielman (Con)

I thank the noble Baroness for her comprehensive answer. I have heard much about good intentions and a great deal of hope being hung on the curriculum and assessment review, but not much acknowledgement of how a number of noble Lords have pointed out that this clause could backfire, especially without better controls and guards. My noble friend Lady Evans laid out particularly lucidly how academy freedoms have enriched and strengthened education. The noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley, echoed my noble friend Lord Agnew’s concerns about the undetermined curriculum and reminded us about the essence and purposes of education and the risks of limiting the scrutiny of what is taught. We had a good case study from my noble friend Lord Sewell. There are a couple of interesting points. Design and technology GCSE entries started dropping off in the late 1990s. Most of the decline has been the result of schools using their autonomy to structure timetables to teach less of it and to have fewer people taking those GCSEs. The safeguards were not there around design and technology for a very long period, so thinking about those controls and incentives really matters. My fear remains that this clause may encourage lip service to the detail of the new curriculum, whatever it is. But if that comes at the expense of the intellectual energy and dynamism that have been generated in the school sector in recent years, it will drag English education inexorably backwards and, in a few years’ time, we might find ourselves languishing with Scotland and Wales in the international league tables, wondering what on earth we have done and why we ever thought that it was a good idea. Nevertheless, I understand where we are and that the curriculum and assessment review needs to report. I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.