Neil O'Brien MP: speeches 2025

Speeches

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

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  We have had an important and interesting debate, and we have heard a mix of arguments—some better than others, I think. The argument about drafting does not hold water. Subsection (2)(a) talks about students, subsection (4) talks about pupils, and subsection (2)(b) would allow a policy to be implemented in a sensible way. If Members do not agree with the new clause, they can just say so, rather than find lawyerly arguments against it. However, there were some good points made. More than one thing can be a problem at a time, and this new clause is not the silver bullet. There are lots of problems with smartphone use outside of schools, as well as other things on top of that that we need to do. That is why I talked about this as a beachhead—as the first thing we should do. It is interesting that all over the world things are changing. In the US, the overwhelming majority of states either already have a ban or are on their way legislatively to getting one. The US is ground zero for a lot of these problems, and it is interesting that it is moving to take decisive action. I think we will, too. For Ministers, there will always be a load of people who want to come to them and say that, “It’s all very complicated—I have been working with the industry,” “It’s correlation not causation,” or, “We should just let be.” There are things in the Bill where the Opposition have been critical of the Government for being more directive than we think is appropriate for the subject. On this issue, however, we think the subject is so important. In this House, we now all talk constantly about the mental health crisis among young people—it is such a big thing. It seems to be pretty incontrovertible that one of the main causes of that is the rise of the smartphone-based childhood. This provision could be an important first step towards tackling that massive national crisis. I hope that at some point Ministers will think again about the provision when they have more time to reflect. The guidance on its own is not working; we can see from the data that it is not changing things enough. That is why I will press the new clause to a Division. Question put , That the clause be read a Second time.

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

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  The hon. Lady makes a thoughtful point. There is a fantastic meta-analysis published by the London School of Economics and the 5Rights Foundation of all the different studies that have been done on this around Europe. The hon. Lady referred to a specific study, which I hope to speak to the authors about. It is a good study, and perfectly sensible, but the issue is that it cannot find anything statistically significant because it looked at only 30 schools, with a sample size of about 1,200 pupils. It does not look at any natural experiments either, so it does not look at schools that are changing their policies. Where we have good RCT-like evidence, like in the great study in Spain, where they looked at a province that changed its policy wholesale, we can see from those natural experiments the really powerful effects of in-school policies. I agree with the hon. Lady that this is not the only thing that we should do. The study she mentioned was not wrong; it just could never show us the things that people are interested in. Indeed, there is plenty of other evidence out there in these meta-analyses, and from Jonathan Haidt’s website, of really powerful in-school effects. A study in the US shows that a class time-only rule does not give teachers as much benefit as they might expect. Research from the National Education Association found that 73% of teachers in schools that allow phone use between classes find that phones are disruptive during classes. The same is true here. The Department for Education’s national behaviour survey, published in April 2024, found that 35% of secondary school teachers reported mobile phones being used during lessons without permission. The problem is more pronounced for older children, unsurprisingly. Some 46% of pupils in years 10 to 11 reported mobile phones being used when they should not have been during “most or all” lessons. That is nearly half of pupils in most or all lessons reporting disruption, so the problem is absolutely there in the DFE’s data. The idea that guidance has done the trick and that there is no longer a problem to solve is contradicted by the Department’s evidence. Work by the company Teacher Tapp, also known as School Surveys, similarly finds very high levels of problems and no signs of progress. Instead of guidance, all schools should be mandated and funded to have lockers and pouches, and to get kids to put smartphones away for the whole day, including breaks. Schools should be the beachhead and the first place that we re-create a smartphone-free childhood—seven hours in which we de-normalise being on the phone all the time for young people. Why do we need a full ban, and not just guidance? I already gave some of the data showing that the guidance has not worked, but there are two other reasons. First, we need to support schools and have their back. From speaking to teachers and school leaders, I know that the pressures from parents to allow phones can be really severe on schools. Some parents, unfortunately, can be unreasonably determined that they must be able to contact their child directly at any minute, even though they are perfectly safe in schools. In the sorts of places where three and four-year-olds have smartphones, that is, I am afraid, normalised now, so a national ban would make things simpler and take the heat off schools. Secondly, a full and total ban is needed as part of a wider resetting of social norms, as the hon. Member for North Herefordshire said, about children and smartphones. Smartphones and social media are doing damage to education even when they are not being used in schools. Our new clause 48 aims to be proportionate, and subsection (2)(b) would allow for exceptions as appropriate, having learned the lessons of what has been done in other countries. To come to the hon. Lady’s wider point, when I was a Health Minister, I wanted us to get going an equivalent of the famous five bits of fruit and veg a day for this field—other Members might remember “Don’t Die of Ignorance” or “Clunk Click Every Trip”. We need some big things to reset the culture and wake up a lot of people, who are not necessarily going to read Jonathan Haidt’s book, to dangers that they may be unaware of. The heavy exposure of our kids to addictive-by-design products of the tech industry is the smoking of our generation. As with smoking, the tech industry comes up with fake solutions that do not actually make things safe. In the 1950s, it was filters on cigarettes, and now it is the supposed parental filters on social media. Just like with smoking, there is unfortunately a powerful social gradient to unmonitored internet access, with the worst effects on the poorest. I do not know what Ministers will do about our new clause this time round, and I do not know what they will do as the Bill goes through the other place, but I hope that they will end up implementing this idea at some point. I will take my hat off to them when they do.

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

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  To answer the question that the hon. Member for Derby North asked directly, subsection (2)(b) says the policy “is to be implemented as the relevant school leader considers appropriate.” I think this is—

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

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  I absolutely agree with the Minister’s sentiment—of course she wants only the right thing for pupils and teachers. However, I will push the new clause to a vote, because we want to think about how we can go further on all these things to create the safe workplace that both teachers and pupils deserve. In another part of the forest, there is an argument about non-crime hate incidents and logging them. The arguments made by the Government about logging them is that one thing leads to another. As I said before, we do not wish to criminalise children, but logging where actual acts of violence are taking place is an important resource for the police and other social services. We think that something along those lines would be useful, and I am keen to push this to a vote, but I know the Minister will think about everything extra that she can do to try to create a safe workplace. Question put, That the clause be read a Second time.

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

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  I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time. Over recent years, we have been in an absolutely extraordinary situation. Very controversial materials from various third party private providers have been used in RSE—relationships and sex education—lessons, yet parents have been denied access to the materials that are being used to teach their children, even though it is them paying, as taxpayers, and it is their children who are being exposed to these materials. That is obviously unacceptable. Various private providers of this material, including for-profit companies, have tried to hide behind copyright law, or have tried to make parents sign agreements, such as that they can see the materials, but only on the strict conditions that they do not quote from them or talk about them, effectively crippling and ending public debate about them. Parents need to see, and to be able to act upon what they see, including discussing it in public and making formal complaints. That requires having a copy of the material and being able to refer to it openly. An important case brought by the campaign group “No Secret Lessons” may establish such rights, but, despite a hearing five months ago, we are still—strangely—awaiting a verdict in its case. I pay tribute to its work in trying to bring back some common sense here. New clause 58 seeks to put into statute the right to have access to the materials that are being used to educate our children about controversial subjects. That, itself, should not be a controversial idea. The intent is that this right, in primary legislation, would cut through the issues around copyright and prevent the industry from trying to stop public discussion that actually needs to happen. The context is that the Government’s response to the consultation on gender-questioning children and RSE is long overdue, and we look forward to hearing the outcome of those processes soon. I hope that the Minister may be able to say some more about when we can expect to see those things. However, whatever the outcome of those reviews, I hope that we can agree on an important principle: that parents should be allowed to know what their children are being taught, and that there should be no secret lessons.

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

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  It is nice to hear the Minister praising the resources that are there for school-led improvement, so we hope that Ministers will look again at the recent decision to cut or curtail things such as mathematics, physics, Latin, computing and the like. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion. Clause, by leave, withdrawn. New Clause 64 Pay and conditions of school support staff in England “(1) A School Support Staff Negotiating Body shall be created to make recommendations to the Secretary of State about the pay and conditions of school support staff in England. (2) The Secretary of State may by order set out the recommended pay and conditions for school support staff in England based on the recommendations of the School Support Staff Negotiating Body. (3) The Secretary of State may by order make provision requiring the remuneration of support staff at an Academy school to be at least equal to the amount specified in, or determined in accordance with, the order. (4) Subsection (5) applies where— (a) an order under this section applies to a member of school support staff at an Academy, and (b) the contract of employment or for services between the member of school support staff at the Academy and the relevant proprietor provides for the member of school support staff to be paid remuneration that is less than the amount specified in, or determined in accordance with, the order. (5) Where this subsection applies— (a) the member of school support staff’s remuneration is to be determined and paid in accordance with any provision of the order that applies to them; and (b) any provision of the contract mentioned in subsection (4)(b) or of the Academy arrangements entered into with the Secretary of State by the relevant proprietor has no effect to the extent that it makes provision that is prohibited by, or is otherwise inconsistent with, the order. (c) In determining the conditions of employment or service of a member of school support staff at an Academy, the relevant proprietor must have regard to any provision of an order under this section that relates to conditions of employment or service.”— (Neil O’Brien.) This new clause would mean that Academies could treat orders made by the Secretary of State in relation to pay and conditions for school support staff as a floor, not a ceiling, on pay, and would allow Academies to have regard to the conditions of employment for school support staff set out by the Secretary of State while not requiring Academies to follow them. Brought up, and read the First time.

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

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  I listened to the hon. Member for Bournemouth East and, broadly speaking, agree with everything he said. I am absolutely in favour of a balanced diet and the free exchange of different ideas, and nothing we are proposing in any way speaks against that. What we propose is in fact a way to ensure that that happens, by allowing parents to see what their children are being taught. I find myself out of sympathy with the Minister’s argument that this is somehow a massive bureaucratic requirement. With state schools, there is FOI, so parents are able to access these materials. The problem has come with private providers using copyright law to escape the same transparency that we expect of schools normally, which is not right. I do not accept that the new clause would require people to have 20 years-worth of materials. It simply states that “a school must allow such persons to view all materials used in the teaching of the school curriculum”. That is in the present tense, so this is not some huge bureaucratic burden. The school has the materials, and the only question is whether the parents can see them, take them away and talk about them to other people. At the moment, free debate on such things is being stifled, and a hugely important principle is being denied to people. We have a right to see what our kids are being taught in schools. For that reason, we will press the new clause to a vote.

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

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  Will my right hon. Friend give way?

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

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  I beg to ask leave to withdraw the clause. Clause, by leave, withdrawn. New Clause 25 Report on the impact of charging VAT on private school fees “(1) The Secretary of State must, within two years of the passing of this Act, publish a report on the impact of charging VAT on private school fees. (2) A report published under subsection (1) must include the following information— (a) how many private schools have closed as a result of the decision to charge VAT on private school fees; (b) how many pupils have moved school because of the decision to charge VAT on private school fees; (c) an analysis, considering paragraphs (a) and (b), of the impact of the decision to charge VAT on private school fees on maintained and academy schools, including on— (i) the availability of school places nationally and in areas where private schools have closed; (ii) the percentage of children which are placed at their first-choice school; and (iii) the number of schools which have had to increase their Publish Admissions Number.”— (Neil O'Brien.) This new clause would require the Secretary of State to publish a report on the impact of charging VAT on private school fees. Brought up, and read the First time.

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

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  I pay tribute to the Minister for the reasonable way in which we have conducted this important debate. We have a huge disagreement with clause 50, which we think is a major mistake. We also have concerns about the process. We believe that it is better for this House to debate these big issues about what fairness is and looks like, and for that to be dealt with through the transparency of primary legislation, rather than its being left to the Secretary of State at any given moment to pass these things in regulations. I am therefore keen to press amendment 84 and new clause 46 to a vote. Question put, That the amendment be made.

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

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  This is a substantive point. I am grateful to the Minister for giving way; we are doing the proper business of a Committee here. Let us be clear: the whole point of the clause is to address situations, such as those in London, where a local authority has one in eight of its primary school pupils disappearing within four years, and schools closures will be a part of that. The Minister said that this is not new, but it absolutely is. At the moment, a primary school cannot have its PAN challenged by the local authority if it just wants to keep it the same. In the future, under this clause, the local authority can say, “We want to close this school. We are going to challenge your decision to keep your PAN the same. We think you should shut.” Under this clause, the schools adjudicator will have the power to set its PAN to zero.

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

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  No!

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

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  If I can put it in my words, there is nothing in the Bill to stop the local authority applying to the adjudicator to stop the first year PAN of a new school. If I say, “I want to open my new school and the PAN is going to be X,” the local authority could say, “No, I think it should be half of X.” There is nothing to stop that, even in the first year. It could even be that the local authority says, “No, the first year number should be zero.” There is nothing in the Bill to stop that happening, so, as my right hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire says, it does apply to new schools.

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

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  Clause 50 is one of the elements of the Bill that we are most concerned about. The Government’s impact assessment says: “Demographic changes mean there is an increase in the number of surplus places in primary schools...We want the local authority to have more influence over the PANs for schools in their area”. For the benefit of people following the sitting, PAN is the published admission number—the number of pupils a school takes on each year. The impact assessment continues: “This would include scenarios where...a school’s PAN is set at a level which creates viability issues for another local school”. In my mind, that line creates many questions. In a city like London, there are roughly 2,700 or 2,800 state schools, and cross-authority moves are very common. If I have an excellent and oversubscribed school, and someone else’s requires improvement and is struggling to attract pupils, how on earth are they to know that it is my school that is creating viability issues for their school, rather than one of the other hundreds of schools nearby? Indeed, how are we to know that the viability issues are not entirely to do with the struggling school, and how is the schools adjudicator to make such decisions? In reverse, how are the pupils from a thriving school to be shared out fairly if there are multiple struggling schools in the area? As soon as we start to think about it, these are massive questions. The impact assessment makes it clear that this measure is a huge departure from the path we have been on since the reforms of the late 1980s, which gave good schools the ability to expand without the local authority blocking them. The impact assessment says: “The Adjudicator will also have the ability to set the PAN for the subsequent year” and “some schools may find that their PAN is not set for them as they would wish. They may feel that they are able to take more pupils and thus receive greater funding. It could also limit the ability of popular schools to grow.” Those are the Government’s words, not mine. They continue: “If a school is required to lower their PAN, some pupils who would have otherwise been admitted will be unable to attend the school. This will negatively impact on parental preference, especially if the school was the parent’s first choice.” The Confederation of School Trusts has pointed out that the impact assessment does not account for the potential risks of reducing PANs for popular and successful schools. Our amendments address exactly that point. Once again, rather than the normal split between the regulator and the provider, the local authorities will be both. Politicians in some local authorities—this is not a secret—have never much liked the academy programme or school freedom. It would be very tempting for them to try to push down numbers in academies, particularly to protect the schools that they run even if they are not the best ones or the ones that parents want. For all those reasons, the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn), the former Labour leader, was positive about the clause on Second Reading. However, for the reasons that he is positive about it I am rather nervous about it. Amendment 84 would write into the Bill: “Where making a decision the adjudicator must take into account— (a) the performance of the school; and (b) whether the school is oversubscribed.” It would make it clear that we need to deal with the issues now, at this point of democratic decision and transparency, and write those principles into law rather than leave it to Ministers and regulations, meaning that the handling of highly significant issues could easily later shift, with little scrutiny, under a different Secretary of State. New clause 47 would stop objections to stable or growing PANs, and new clause 46 would at least exempt high performing schools and allow them to still expand. A striking thing about the clause is that it is not just allowing appeals against schools expanding for the first time—a massive move away from the principles of the School Standards and Framework Act 1998—but even allowing appeals against schools just staying the same and carrying on doing what they are doing. That can now be challenged, and the only reason to do that is to share out the pupils in order to help other schools be more viable. Will the powers be used? Yes, absolutely they will, because the context, of course, is the forecast decline in pupil numbers. Indeed, the impact assessment gives that as one of the rationales in London and other urban areas. The declines are forecast to be quite steep. Often local forecasts turn out to be wrong, but in some London boroughs the forecast is for more than one in 10 or even one in eight pupils to disappear over the next four years. In that context, the temptation to prop up some schools by pressing for reductions in others will be very strong, particularly for local authorities that do not like school choice much, but even in others, too. At present there is nothing in the Bill to reassure us or school leaders that this will be done fairly between local authority and non-local authority schools, or fairly reflecting how well schools are performing or fairly reflecting how popular they are. There is nothing but the suggestion of future guidance, which the House will not be able to amend and which can shift with the views of whoever is Secretary of State at the time. There is some deep history here. It was Mrs Thatcher who announced the reforms that the Government are starting to undo today. It was initially called the local management of schools. When Mrs Thatcher announced it, she said, “We will allow popular schools to take in as many children as space will permit. And this will stop local authorities from putting artificially low limits on entry to good schools. And second, we will give parents and governors the right to take their children’s school out of the hands of the local authority and into the hands of their own governing body. This will create a new kind of school funded by the State, alongside the present State schools and the independent private schools. They will bring a better education to many children because the school will be in the hands of those who care most for it and for its future.” Did those reforms work? Well, the former Education Minister, Lord Adonis, who wrote about the creation of the school freedom, concluded: “Local Management of Schools was an unalloyed and almost immediate success…school budgets under LMS were based largely on pupil numbers, so parental choice came to matter as never before.” Several times during our debates I have heard Labour Members say that they believe in “standards, not structures”. We heard it in the last sitting and I have heard it from Ministers. But let me quote from another great socialist thinker, former Prime Minister Tony Blair, who says in his memoirs, “We had come to power in 1997 saying it was ‘standards not structures’ that mattered. We said this in respect of education, but it applied equally to health and other public services. Unfortunately, as I began to realise, when experience shaped our thinking, it was bunkum as a piece of policy. The whole point is that structures beget standards. How a service is configured affects outcomes.” This clause strikes at one of the most foundational school reforms of the last 40 years. It strikes at school choice by making the size of schools not a matter for parents in choosing and voting with their feet, but instead for local councillors and the schools adjudicator. You strike at parental choice and you strike at one of the most powerful engines for school improvement. Although I understand what Ministers are trying to do, this is currently being done in the Bill without any of the basic safeguards we would expect on how they will make those decisions. I understand what Ministers are trying to do, but I think this is one of the worst clauses in the Bill, and I really hope that Ministers will rethink it.

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

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  rose—

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

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  What share of “surplus places” is too high in the eyes of the Minister? Will she set out in guidance what “too high” looks like? What is her view on too high—is it 1%, 2% or 3% surplus places?

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

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  I think Sam Freedman is a fella rather than a lady. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. Clause 48 ordered to stand part of the Bill. Clause 49 ordered to stand part of the Bill. Clause 50 Functions of adjudicator in relation to admission numbers

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

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  The Minister is talking about within local communities and within local authorities and so on. I raised the issue of how this is supposed to work in London. The Government talked about using this power where “a school’s PAN is set at a level which creates viability issues for another local school”. Local is not defined. How is the schools adjudicator to work out whether it is one school that is creating “viability issues for another local school” in a setting like London, where there are many schools nearby, or whether some of the viability issues are to do with the school’s own performance, perhaps, because it is not a very good school? How on earth is one to identify fairly in a city like this, with vast flows between boroughs, where the problem is coming from for a “failing” school?

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

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  The Minister says that the Secretary of State can shut schools in other ways. The schools authority, under this law, will have the power to set a PAN to zero. I did not hear the Minister say that, according to guidance, that should not happen. Will she say that now?

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

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  Will the Minister give way?

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

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  Of course it is not. This is stupid. It affects the entire country.

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

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  Of course it is a new power.

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

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  I am extremely grateful to the Minister for her offer to write on this point. To avoid disturbing her flow any further, can I ask her to explain something? If a school is not happy with the decision of the adjudicator on its PAN, what will the appeal process look like for that school?

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

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  It was the Minister herself who said “we know” that some schools had expanded “beyond what was needed”’; she did not say that an admissions adjudicator had determined that. In response to my challenge, she referred to the admissions adjudicator, but it was she herself who said “we know” that some schools had expanded beyond the point that was “needed”. How does she know that? On what basis does she say that?

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

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  The Minister talks about schools expanding “beyond what is needed”. How will she determine whether a school’s expansion is “beyond what is needed”? Is it the presence of any “surplus” school places in that local authority area?