Peers will attempt to amend the government’s schools bill to water down proposed council admissions powers, get paused free schools projects back on track and limit wide-ranging new direction powers for ministers.
One member of the House of Lords has submitted more than 180 amendments seeking to give home educating families sweeping tax breaks and even close schools down and convert them to education “hubs” if the majority of parents opt-out.
The children’s wellbeing and schools bill is currently in its “committee stage” in the upper house. This means peers are going through the bill line-by-line, while considering around 500 amendments tabled.
Amendments generally only pass when they get government backing or if several parties team up to force them through – meaning most will fail.
But they give an insight into the key issues Lords have with the bill.
Baroness Barran, the shadow education minister, has proposed extending academies’ pay freedoms to council maintained schools. She also wants government to proceed with free schools paused last October.
Limit direction powers and ease curriculum requirement
Peers have been highly critical of broad proposed powers for the education secretary to give trusts whatever “directions” she “considers appropriate”.
Barran will seek to amend the legislation to “limit” the power to only relate to academies’ “statutory duties, the requirements of a funding agreement, or charity law”.
Lord Agnew, another former academies minister, is seeking to ensure academies rated ‘good’ won’t have to follow the national curriculum.
Another controversial element of the bill is its proposal to allow councils to object to the admissions numbers of academies.
An Agnew amendment argues these should be limited “to situations where the admission authority has failed to meet its admissions obligations or has treated pupils unfairly”.
The peer also wants to change the law so maintained schools have to ensure their accounts are externally audited and publish annual accounts on their websites – bringing them in line with academy trusts.
SEND profit cap, phone ban and council school mergers
Liberal Democrats will seek to amend the bill to extend a profit cap on private social care providers to include independent special schools.
Several Lords are seeking to extend free school meals and introduce auto-enrolment, while Conservatives will again seek a requirement for schools to ban phones during the day.
Lord Blunkett, Tony Blair’s first education secretary, has tabled an amendment on Ofsted inspection of academy trusts and another that would allow failing schools to merge with a “high-performing maintained school”.
Boost faith admissions cap and scrap daily worship
Ex-Labour shadow minister Lord Watson and veteran peer Lord Dubs are seeking to require all new schools to apply a 50 per cent cap on faith-based admissions when over-subscribed. This currently only applies to free schools.
And a group of Labour and Liberal Democrat peers are seeking to remove the requirement for daily collective worship in England for schools without a religious character.
Baroness Morris, another former education secretary, has tabled an amendment that would mean only resources in the public domain can be used to teach relationships, sex and health education.
The government is also proposing to limit the number of branded uniform items schools can require to three in primary schools and four including a tie at secondary.
Barran has tabled an amendment seeking to allow schools to exceed those limits “if they are making them available, whether new or second-hand, at a lower cost than buying non-branded items”.
Another amendment seeks to exclude items of PE kit required when representing the school in sporting activities from the limit.
Home educator seeks sweeping rights
Speaking in the Lords on Tuesday, Agnew said the number of amendments demonstrated the “serious concerns” about the bill.
But of the nearly 500 amendments, around 180 relate to home education and have been tabled by Lord Wei, a Conservative peer who helped set up Teach First and worked for the charity Ark.
Wei, a home-educating parent, is proposing a “child-led school closure mechanism”, which would force a consultation on shutting a school “where at least 80 per cent of pupils…express a preference for home education”.
Agnew said he feared ministers would “dismiss many of [the amendments] as distractions”.
But minister Baroness Smith said that was “wholly wrong. I want to get on to discuss the detail of those amendments in this committee”.
She also clashed with Barran over a proposed new first clause, which she said would “clarify the purposes of the bill”.
Smith said the amendment was “not only…unnecessary but has been tabled to delay our detailed consideration of the significant legislation before us”.
Your thoughts