Neil O'Brien MP: speeches 2025

Speeches

• 4 Feb 2025 · Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill (Ninth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I wish to press our amendment 75. To explain that briefly, across the public sector, be it in the civil service, the police or social work, we are trying to make it easier for talented people to come in from the outside, yet in this field we are moving in exactly the opposite direction. The Government are offering pragmatism in some fields, but not in the case of shortage subjects. I beg to ask leave to withdraw amendment 73, but I am keen to press our amendment 75. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. Amendment proposed : 75, in clause 40, page 99, line 23, at end insert— “(1A) In section 133 (requirement to be qualified), after subsection (1) insert— ‘(1A) Where a person is carrying out such work for the purposes of teaching a shortage subject, the requirement in subsection (1)(a) does not apply. (1B) For the purposes of this section, “shortage subject” means any subject in relation to which the Department for Education’s recruitment targets for initial teacher training have been missed in the most recent year for which such statistics exist.’”— (Neil O’Brien .) Question put, That the amendment be made.

• 4 Feb 2025 · Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill (Ninth sitting) · Hansard source

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  We thought that it was unintentional that academies are being brought into this new system of regulation. From the Minister’s comments, it is clearly intentional. This is triple dipping: the Minister already has controls over these schools; clause 43 takes that further, and this is another thing. I therefore will push the amendment to a vote. Question put, That the amendment be made.

• 4 Feb 2025 · Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill (Ninth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I could pick this concern up in our next debate, on clause 31, but a related issue is linked to my concerns about this clause, so I will give the Minister a moment to reply. He mentioned the list of excepted institutions, which we find at clause 30, page 70, from line 17, and various types of institution are exempted: local authority schools, special schools, 16-to-19 academies and further education colleges, but not academies and free schools. Why? I want to check that that is a conscious choice by the Government and to get an explanation of why that is the case.

• 4 Feb 2025 · Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill (Ninth sitting) · Hansard source

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  It seems to me that the Government recognise the importance of pragmatism and that that is why they have chosen to exempt FE, 14-to-19 academies, 16-to-19 academies, university technical colleges, studio schools and non-maintained early years settings, and I would be grateful if the Minister would confirm that. I put it to her that the same argument that has caused Ministers to pragmatically exclude those types of schools is perhaps also an argument for excluding shortage subjects.

• 4 Feb 2025 · Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill (Ninth sitting) · Hansard source

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  To finish the point, sometimes there are reasons. Sometimes people want to give back; but by making it harder for them to go to state schools, it is state schools that will miss out—not independent schools or others.

• 4 Feb 2025 · Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill (Ninth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I beg to move amendment 73, in clause 40, page 99, line 23, at end insert— “(1A) In section 133 (requirement to be qualified), after subsection (1) insert— ‘(1A) The requirement in subsection (1)(a) only applies after a person has been carrying out such work in a school for five years.’”

• 4 Feb 2025 · Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill (Ninth sitting) · Hansard source

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  Straw man.

• 4 Feb 2025 · Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill (Ninth sitting) · Hansard source

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  rose —

• 4 Feb 2025 · Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill (Ninth sitting) · Hansard source

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  The hon. Lady has completely missed the point. This clause means that academy schools will no longer be able to employ people without QTS to do exactly the kind of inspiring things that Sir Martyn, at the start of our first evidence session, said he had used them so brilliantly to do.

• 4 Feb 2025 · Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill (Ninth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I beg to move amendment 70, in clause 31, page 72, line 31, at end insert— “(1A) Powers under subsection (1) may not be exercised in relation to an academy.” This amendment specifies that the Secretary of State should rely on the provisions in Funding Agreements as regards to academies.

• 4 Feb 2025 · Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill (Ninth sitting) · Hansard source

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  If the hon. Gentleman were a parent at an FE college, would he have the same expectation, and does he understand why all these other schools are exempt?

• 4 Feb 2025 · Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill (Ninth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I wish to press the amendment to a vote. The Minister has confirmed that the provision applies to academy schools. It is not proportionate—to use the Minister’s term—to require the Secretary of State to be informed of a state school changing part of a building, or building a permanent outdoor structure. A school that put up a gazebo would have to go to the Secretary of State. That is not proportionate; it is an error. The rest of the clause is totally reasonable, but on this point it is unreasonable, so I want to press the amendment to a vote. Question put, That the amendment be made.

• 4 Feb 2025 · Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill (Ninth sitting) · Hansard source

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  The second part of my question was about the settings the Minister has chosen to exclude—let us be clear that this is a new exclusion from a new rule. They are settings where the share of non-QTS teachers is typically higher. We are still looking for the explanation of why some schools are different from others. These are schools with kids of the same age—schools with 14-year-olds—but some will have the new requirement and others will not. I am just trying to get Ministers to explain the logic of that. It seems to be pragmatic: there are not enough QTS teachers in those schools and Ministers do not want to create a problem by applying their new rules to those types of settings, of which there are many. I am just trying to make the same point about shortage subjects. I do not know if the Minister can see the connection.

• 4 Feb 2025 · Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill (Tenth sitting) · Hansard source

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  New clause 54 would allow academies to continue to exercise freedom in the matter of their curriculum where Ofsted is satisfied that the curriculum is broad and balanced. New clause 53 would allow ongoing curriculum freedom in academies where it is needed in the interests of improving standards. New clause 44 would extend academy freedoms to local authority maintained schools, allowing them to offer a curriculum that is different from the national curriculum, as long as it is broad and balanced and certified by Ofsted. The imposition on all schools of the—currently being rewritten—national curriculum was raised in our evidence session right at the start of this Bill Committee. As Nigel Genders, the chief education officer of the Church of England noted: “The complexity is that this legislation is happening at the same time as the curriculum and assessment review, so our schools are being asked to sign up to a general curriculum for everybody without knowing what that curriculum is likely to be.” –– [ Official Report, Children's Wellbeing and Schools Public Bill Committee, 21 January 2025; c. 64.] There is a parallel here in that we are also being asked to sign up to sweeping reforms to the academies order at the same time as the Government are changing the accountability framework, as the hon. Member for Twickenham correctly pointed out in the Chamber yesterday. Several school leaders gave us good examples showing why it is a mistake to take away academy freedoms to vary from the national curriculum. As Sir Dan Moynihan, the leader of the incredibly successful Harris Federation, explained to us: “We have taken over failing schools in very disadvantaged places in London, and we have found youngsters in the lower years of secondary schools unable to read and write. We varied the curriculum in the short term and narrowed the number of subjects in key stage 3 in order to maximise the amount of time given for literacy and numeracy, because the children were not able to access the other subjects. Of course, that is subject to Ofsted. Ofsted comes in, inspects and sees whether what you are doing is reasonable. “That flexibility has allowed us to widen the curriculum out again later and take those schools on to ‘outstanding’ status. We are subject to Ofsted scrutiny. It is not clear to me why we would need to follow the full national curriculum. What advantage does that give? When we have to provide all the nationally-recognised qualifications—GCSEs, A-levels, SATs—and we are subject to external regulation by Ofsted, why take away the flexibility to do what is needed locally?” –– [ Official Report, Children's Wellbeing and Schools Public Bill Committee, 21 January 2025; c. 72.] Luke Sparkes, from the also very successful Dixons Academies Trust, argued that: “we…need the ability to enact the curriculum in a responsive and flexible way at a local level. I can see the desire to get that consistency, but there needs to be a consistency without stifling innovation.” –– [ Official Report, Children's Wellbeing and Schools Public Bill Committee, 21 January 2025; c. 79.] Rebecca Leek from the Suffolk Primary Headteachers’ Association told us: “Anything that says, ‘Well, we are going to go slightly more with a one-size-fits-all model’—bearing in mind, too, that we do not know what that looks like, because this national curriculum has not even been written yet—is a worry. That is what I mean. If we suddenly all have to comply with something that is more uniform and have to check—‘Oh no, we cannot do that’, ‘Yes, we can do that’, ‘No, we can’t do that’, ‘Yes, we can do that’—it will impede our ability to be agile”. –– [ Official Report, Children's Wellbeing and Schools Public Bill Committee, 21 January 2025; c. 83.] The Minister talked about Chesterton’s fence and gave us some lessons in Conservative history and philosophy, but I point her to the same argument: this is an example of Chesterton’s fence. These freedoms and flexibilities are there for a reason. They are there to defend us against the inflexibility of not being able to do what Sir Dan Moynihan needs to do to turn around failing schools. It is no good us saying, “Here is the perfect curriculum. Let’s go and study this incredibly advanced subject” if the kids cannot read or add up. This is a very powerful point that school leaders are making to us, one which I hope Ministers will take on board. Since the Minister referred to a bit of Conversative history and Ken Baker’s creation of the national curriculum in the 1980s, she will of course be aware that there was a huge debate about it and a lot of concern, particularly from Mrs Thatcher, about what many described as the “nationalised curriculum”. There was concern that it would get out of hand, become too prescriptive, too bureaucratic and too burdensome. That debate will always be there, and the safety valve we have at the moment is that never since its instigation have all schools had to follow the national curriculum. Even though academies did not exist then, city technology colleges did and they did not have the follow the national curriculum. This is the first time in our whole history that every single school will have to follow it. In relation to previous clauses, I have spoken about getting away from the dead hand of compliance culture and moving toward an achievement and innovation culture—a culture of freedom—in our schools. Pupils at Michaela Community School made the greatest progress in the whole country three years in a row—an incredible achievement—and they did that by having an incredibly distinctive and knowledge-intensive curriculum that was completely their own. Its head, Katharine Birbalsingh, has argued in an open letter to the Secretary of State: “Clearly there needs to be a broad academic core for all children. But a rigid national curriculum that dictates adherence to a robotic, turgid and monotonous programme of learning that prevents headteachers from giving their children a bespoke offer tailored to the needs of their pupils, is quite frankly, horrifying. Anyone in teaching who has an entrepreneurial spirit, who enjoys thinking creatively about how best to address the needs of their pupils, will be driven out of the profession. Not to mention how standards will drop! High standards depend in part on the dynamism of teachers. Why would you want to kill our creativity? Then there is the cost. Your curriculum changes will cost schools time and money. Do you have any idea of the work required from teachers and school leaders to change their curriculum? You will force heads to divert precious resources from helping struggling families to fulfil a bureaucratic whim coming from Whitehall. Why are you changing things? What is the problem you are trying to solve?” That is a good question; perhaps the Minister can tell us the answer. Nor is it just school leaders who are raising concerns about this clause. The hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden (Dame Siobhain McDonagh) said that the proposal to make it compulsory for academies to teach the national curriculum was “of particular concern” to her. Our three new clauses reflect what school leaders have told us. We think the clause is fundamentally a bad idea, but we are trying to find a compromise. New clause 53 responds to Sir Dan Moynihan’s point that freedom to vary from the national curriculum can be really important in turnaround situations: we cannot succeed in other things if children are unable first to read and write. New clause 54 allows freedom where schools are delivering a broad and balanced curriculum. That worries Ministers, although we heard from the head of Ofsted the other day that schools are delivering a broad and balanced curriculum, so once again it is not clear what problem Ministers are trying to solve. We do not learn the answer from the impact assessment either. If this is just about ensuring that all schools have the same freedoms, new clause 54 would give local authority schools the same freedoms as academies, but that is not what the Government are proposing. I hope the Minister will tell us at some point what problem she is trying to solve. Where is the evidence of abuse? There is none in the impact assessment, and Ministers have not produced any at any point so far in the process. The Government’s impact assessment says that schools “may need to hire additional or specialist teachers for any subjects not currently delivered or underrepresented in existing curricula”, that they may need to make adjustments in their facilities, resources and materials to meet the national curriculum standards, and that they may need “additional or specialised training” to deliver the new national curriculum. It says: “some academies may be particularly affected if their current curriculum differs significantly from the new national curriculum”. Unfortunately, the impact assessment does not put any numbers on the impact. Will the Minister commit clearly and unambiguously to meet the costs, including for facilities, for any schools that have to incur costs as a result of this measure? The Minister talked about Jim Callaghan’s famous phrase, his reference to a “secret garden”. We will come on to that on a later new clause, when we will advance the case against secret lessons in relationships, health and sex education. I hope the Minister will be as good as her word; I hope she is against the secret garden in that domain. On these new clauses, we hope the Minister will listen to the voices of school leaders, her own colleagues and people who are concerned about clause 41, and tell us what the problem is that the Government are trying to solve. The Government clearly like the idea of everything being the same—they like imposing the same thing on every school in the country—but what is the problem? Where is the evidence that this needs to happen? Why are Ministers not listening to serious school leaders who have turned around a lot of schools, who say that they need this freedom to turn around schools that are currently failing kids? Why do Ministers think they know better than school leaders who have already succeeded in turning around failing schools?

• 4 Feb 2025 · Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill (Tenth sitting) · Hansard source

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  No, I said that that happened in the ’80s.

• 4 Feb 2025 · Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill (Tenth sitting) · Hansard source

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  The Minister mentions a trust that is not complying with its legal duties; I do not think we would have a problem with addressing that, but that is not what is drafted here. As the provision is drafted, the Secretary of State can intervene whenever he or she thinks, in their own eye, that the school is behaving unreasonably. The only appeal the school will have is judicial review. The Minister is saying a lot of sensible stuff, but that is just too much, and I am keen to press amendment 88.

• 4 Feb 2025 · Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill (Tenth sitting) · Hansard source

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  Just a second. To make the claim that Ministers want to make for all kinds of reasons, they have to know. It is not me who is making the prediction, but them. I just want them to give us the numbers behind it.

• 4 Feb 2025 · Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill (Tenth sitting) · Hansard source

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  Will the hon. Lady give way?

• 4 Feb 2025 · Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill (Tenth sitting) · Hansard source

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  It was the Prime Minister’s words, not mine.

• 4 Feb 2025 · Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill (Tenth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I am afraid that the Minister is the one making the prediction. It is her consultation document that says that the Government expect that twice as many schools will go through some combination of either RISE or structural intervention. The Government must know, to be able to make the claim—

• 4 Feb 2025 · Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill (Tenth sitting) · Hansard source

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  rose—

• 4 Feb 2025 · Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill (Tenth sitting) · Hansard source

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  Will the hon. Lady give way?

• 4 Feb 2025 · Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill (Tenth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I am trying to get the Minister to de-conflate her own statistics. The Government want to present the statistic in a deliberately conflated way and I am trying to get it de-conflated. This is the Government’s statistic; I am not offering it. I would like to have some sense from them of how many schools—they must have the figure to make the claim—are going to go through structural interventions so that we can compare the future regime to the previous regime. The Ministers are the ones making the claim that this will intervene on more schools; I am not claiming that. I think it is reasonable to ask for the numbers behind the Government’s own claims, which they did not have to make. There is an irony behind all this. Ministers have said that they worry about having different types of schools and they want things in the system to be generally more consistent. Currently, the school system is a sort of halfway house: about 80% of secondary schools are now academies, but fewer than half of primaries are—so just over half of state schools are now academies; most academies are in a trust and so on. In the absence of this Bill we were gradually moving over time, in an organic way, to get to a consistent system based on academies and trusts, which would then at some point operate on the same framework. But the Bill effectively freezes that halfway: it is ending the academisation order and enabling local authorities to open more new schools again. I have never been quite clear about why Ministers want a situation where they do not end up with an organic move to a single system but remain with the distinction between academies and local authority maintained schools, particularly given the drive for consistency elsewhere in the Bill. In the past, there have been people in the Government who have held anti-academies views, or at least been prepared to bandwagon with anti-academies campaigners on the left. When running for leadership of the Labour party, the Prime Minister said: “The academisation of our schools is centralising at its core and it has fundamentally disempowered parents, pupils and communities.” That was not long ago; there he was, on the bandwagon with the anti-academies people. Likewise, the Deputy Prime Minister said she wanted to stop academy conversion and “scrap the inefficient free school programme”. We talked about the evidence that those programmes worked when Labour Members asked for it. The Deputy Prime Minister said that the free schools programme is inefficient, but the average Progress 8 score of a free school is 0.25. That is a fantastic score, getting a quarter of a grade better across all subjects, which is beating the national average. That is what the Deputy Prime Minister thought was so inefficient, but the opposite is the truth. The Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister are not the only ones: the Culture Secretary spoke at an anti-academies conference. The Energy Secretary said that free schools were the last thing we need—but actually, for many kids they are the first. When Ministers in this Government say that they just want more options, and that they are still prepared to fight all the usual suspects to put failing schools under new management—even where left-wing local campaigns are against it—we start from a bit of a sceptical position, because of the relatively recent comments made by senior Ministers. We do not have to imagine the future. The other day, we saw a choice: we saw a straw in the wind. Glebefields primary school in Tipton was issued with an academy order after being rated less than good twice. The DFE previously told Glebefields that the Education Secretary did not believe the case met the criteria to revoke academisation, despite the change of policy before us. The school threatened legal action and the Secretary of State changed her mind. I worry that there will be many such cases, as well as court cases, and that too many children will find themselves in schools that are failing them, and in need of new management that they will not get. Ultimately, our amendments seek to limit the damage of this clause, but fundamentally we think that it is a mistake. We worry that, in a few years’ time, Ministers will realise what some of their Back-Bench colleagues already realise: why this clause is a big mistake.

• 4 Feb 2025 · Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill (Tenth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I am keen to press the amendment. Question put, That the amendment be made.

• 4 Feb 2025 · Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill (Tenth sitting) · Hansard source

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  rose —