Lord Moynihan of Chelsea (Con)

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Mohammed, and my noble friend Lord Biggar on their excellent maiden speeches. Committee on this Bill is in a few weeks. Today we are exploring many important topics covered in the Bill yet, as quite often recently, we are getting just four minutes to speak. It is hard to cover much at all in that time, and this is two Bills in one. The first is praiseworthy because it protects children’s well-being. The second is not so much because it dismantles much of the successful educational reforms of recent decades. Squashing these two together into the same Bill mixes the message. In the rest of my short speech, I will discuss only the second part of the Bill and a few of the concerns I hope we can focus on in Committee. First, removing the academy order is baffling. We have no clue what the Government will offer as an alternative. What question was this the answer to? It attacks the successful academy concept invented by the Labour Peer, the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, who is much missed here. It fails to acknowledge the increasingly obvious superior organisation and success of multi-academy trusts, as has been shown in several speeches today by those who founded and ran them. Some justified removal of the order by saying that a lot of the worst schools are academies. That is because for years the worst local authority schools have been transferred to MATs. We know that they then improve as a result. This practice should be continued, and without a two-year wait. Secondly, on curriculum, the Bill is yet more of, “We know best”. Head teachers should be allowed to tweak their curricula according to their classes’ specific needs and levels of ability. It is strange indeed to want to remove that constructive flexibility, when we all know that one size never fits all. Thirdly, requiring that only qualified teachers may teach will hit teacher numbers, both in general and for specific subjects, particularly STEM subjects. Teacher numbers are already low, and this will worsen them. This looks like a closed-shop concession to the teachers’ unions—if it walks and quacks like a duck, it is probably a duck. If passed, this provision will remove so many inspiring, effective and motivated teachers from the schools in which they are right now doing great work. Finally—it is all I have time to squeeze in—preventing successful schools expanding will prop up failing local schools, reward failure and lead to worse results for the children. We already hear of local authorities pressing successful academies to shrink so that they can fill up those failing local authority schools that have rightly been deserted by parents who want their children to get a better education. The proposal helps chums and allies but will worsen educational results. In all that, one could end up thinking we have forgotten the children. Even with the significant gains in education in recent years, many children still leave school innumerate and illiterate. The Bill should have focused on replicating in the less good schools the approaches of schools that have shown great educational results. As written, the Bill will remove much of the good that good schools do, and revert them to much of the management practices, structure and failures of the bad schools. The unions may be pleased and the local councils and authorities that have failed to improve their local school systems may be pleased, but what about the children?