HC Deb 15 July 2002 vol 389 cc92-102

Lords amendment: No. 23.

Mr. Miliband

I beg to move, That this House disagrees with the Lords in the said amendment.

Madam Deputy Speaker

With this we may discuss Government amendment (a) in lieu of the Lords amendment.

Mr. Miliband

I know that the whole House will agree that there must be strong partnerships between parents and schools. That is important for children, for schools and for parents. A good and open relationship between home and school can make a huge difference to a child's progress. Annual parents meetings are one means to that end: a positive and productive partnership between parents and schools that contributes to raising standards. Of course, meetings can be particularly important where parents have concerns that they want to express.

Currently, governors are obliged to hold meetings once a year. They are intended to be an opportunity for all parents to influence the running of schools, and at present they are subject to considerable regulation. When we introduced the Bill, we proposed to re-enact the existing requirements essentially as they are. On reflection, however, we accept the Lords' view, expressed in amendment No. 23, that there is no need for detailed regulation of the meetings. Since they were introduced, they have been prescriptively regulated, but we agree that the detailed arrangements can perfectly well be left to schools.

We want to retain the current exceptions from the general duty to hold parents meetings, as I shall explain in due course. We are ready to go further and to consult on whether there are circumstances in which the requirement could be further relaxed, especially where schools can demonstrate that they have involved parents thoroughly in the life of the school throughout the year. Although we cannot accept the Lords amendment, because it would leave us with a clause that does not legally serve its purpose, we very much accept its thrust.

There is an important principle here that will be supported across the House. Governors should give parents the opportunity to hold them to account for what they are doing. The requirement left in the Bill by the Lords does not quite do that job, because it does not specify the purpose of the annual meeting. As it stands, there would be no requirement on governing bodies to allow parents to present their views on how their child's school was being run, or might be run in future. Schools would be able to claim that they had fulfilled the duty to hold an annual parents meeting by inviting parents to a party, a sports days or a school play. I hope that the House agrees that we need to tidy up the matter.

The removal of the regulation-making powers would also put some schools in a worse position than they are in now, because it would remove the possibility of exemption from that duty, to which I referred a moment ago. For example, at present special schools established in hospitals, or maintained schools where at least 50 per cent. of the pupils are boarders, do not have to hold annual parents meetings if the governing body of the school concerned does not think that it would be practicable to do so. Many of those schools would find it extremely difficult to persuade any parents to attend annual parents meetings. We do not believe that they should be required to do so in future.

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As we have said throughout, we believe that if schools have held a meeting to discuss an Ofsted report, they should be exempt from a requirement to hold a further meeting. We want to ensure that parents have an annual opportunity to hold the governors to account, but we do not want that requirement to be more burdensome than absolutely necessary. As I have said, we are prepared to look further to see whether there are other circumstances in which it would be right to relieve schools of that duty. We will invite suggestions on that when we come to consult on the draft regulations and guidance. I do not want to revisit a previous debate, but this issue might be one in which we can achieve a measure of deregulation that is welcomed by both sides of the House.

The Government amendment closes the unintended loophole created by the Lords amendment, so that only a meeting in which the governors can be held to account is counted as an annual parents meeting. It also ensures that there can be exemptions where it does not make sense to hold a meeting. The annual parents meeting is a backstop, and it is important that we keep it; but I hope that the House will join me in supporting the Government amendment, which accepts the thrust of the Lords amendment while ensuring that the basic principle of parents meetings and the current exemptions are retained.

Mr. Brady

Given the consensual tone in which the Minister has presented the Government's response to the Lords amendment, I do not want to be too strongly controversial or party political—the Minister knows that that is not in my character anyway. However, I am tempted to make the observation that if only the Government had not, at earlier stages of our consideration of the Bill, denied the House of Commons the chance properly to scrutinise the Bill, we might have saved both ourselves and another place considerable effort. The clauses relating to annual parents meetings were among those many clauses that, sadly, fell victim to an extremely arbitrary timetable and the use of so-called knives throughout the Bill's Committee stage. It is sad that on a matter on which, as the Minister has shown, there is room for agreement across the House, as well as room to make sensible improvements to legislation, the use of procedural devices should have prevented consideration that might have enabled those things to happen.

In Committee, I tabled an amendment that would have had a slightly different effect from the Lords amendment. The detail of that amendment was to provide that a school would not need to hold a parents meeting annually unless there was a requirement or demand to do so from a certain number—a small number—of parents. The objective was to provide the sort of backstop that the Minister rightly says is important. Unfortunately, because of the timetable and the use of the knife, the Committee was unable to debate not only my amendment but this entire part of the Bill. Had Members of Parliament been given an opportunity to do their job properly, we might already have arrived at the sensible agreement towards which we are now moving.

The Minister has spoken of a desirable removal of unnecessary regulation. On the previous group of amendments, we were seeking precisely such an example of where it might be possible to remove some elements of unnecessary regulation without damage. The other place has made a sensible proposal that is designed to remove unnecessary regulation of the way in which parents meetings are held—how they should be publicised and their precise format. I am sure that most hon. Members on both sides accept that that is unnecessary detail for primary legislation.

The Government amendment specifies the minimum regulation necessary for the meetings, providing only that they must take place and that they must be an opportunity to hold the governors and school to account, and stating that in certain circumstances exemption from the obligation to hold a meeting is possible. The Minister mentioned the circumstances in which a meeting to discuss an Ofsted report has already been held. As I read it, new subsection (3) would create the sort of regime that I sought at an earlier stage of consideration, but would do so by regulation.

I would welcome clarification of whether, under new subsection (3), the circumstances in which there is no need to hold an annual meeting could be extended to include a presumption that an annual meeting may not be held unless certain circumstances prevail. I simply wonder how much latitude there is in the new subsection; it seems on the face of it that the provision could be interpreted quite broadly. I have no difficulty with that, so long as a backstop position remains—a guarantee that parents will have an opportunity to hold the school to account when there is a need to do so.

We want to avoid meetings being held unnecessarily—perhaps a meeting has already been held, or the school's experience is that when an annual meeting at which governors and the head teacher can be held to account is convened, no parents attend. It is a question of finding a sensible way forward.

Mr. George Osborne (Tatton)

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. Does he agree that it is important that the Minister gives us a clue as to the likely nature of the regulations issued under new subsection (3), so that we have some idea of what he has in mind?

Mr. Brady

I am grateful to my hon. Friend and neighbour for his helpful intervention, in which he tries precisely to pin down the Minister on the key point. The Opposition have no difficulty in principle with the fairly broad provisions of the permissive new subsection (3), which states that regulations may specify the circumstances in which a governing body are to be exempt from the obligation imposed by subsection (1). However, if regulations are to be the instrument used, it is not only appropriate but, as my hon. Friend suggests, necessary and important that at this point the Minister puts a little flesh on the bones of what the Government envisage those circumstances being.

Mr. Andrew Turner

Does my hon. Friend agree that the provision on annual parents meetings was a necessary part of previous education legislation? It was part of either the 1986 or the 1988 Act—I cannot remember which—and was designed in an era in which parental choice was far more restricted than it is now and there was far less parental representation on governing bodies than there is now. None the less, it is necessary to provide that such meetings should be held until we reach that fortunate position in which there is total parental choice and schools that do not respond to their market as they should do not need to be prompted by means of meetings, but are instead prompted by means of the exercise of parental choice.

Mr. Brady

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, as I was throughout Committee, for his helpful and knowledgeable contributions. He is right that the circumstances or ground rules have changed since the provision was introduced. I set out to be helpful and accommodating to the Government. but he brings me back to the formula which I sought to float in Committee: there should be a provision to allow parents to require an annual meeting to take place if one would not otherwise take place. I should be grateful for the Minister's elucidation on whether, in any regulations that he may introduce, if an exemption is granted, it would be appropriate to set out the circumstances and a mechanism by which parents could overturn it. If there has been a meeting with Ofsted to discuss an Ofsted report in general terms, it may not be necessary to hold a further parents meeting. There may be a material change in a year in which a meeting has already taken place, in which case parents should have the opportunity to require another meeting. I would be grateful for clarification from the Minister on that point.

No debate of the provisions of this unusual Bill would be complete without looking at the huge scope of powers to make exemptions under part 1, particularly the ability to make exemptions for the purposes of innovation. As we know, part 1 allows for exemption from any requirement in education legislation. In Committee, we clarified the fact that the provisions to make an exemption from the requirements of education legislation are self-embracing—they include measures in the Bill. I therefore urge the Minister to consider in what circumstances a school may seek to deviate from the regulations provided for under Government amendment (a). Is he prepared to give a clear and definite answer this evening about whether he would exclude exemptions for the purposes of innovation from measures on parents meetings, or are there circumstances in which he would be prepared to contemplate allowing a school to make its own amendments to the regulations?

Finally, throughout the progress of the Bill, there has been agreement between Members on both sides of the House about reducing the burden of regulation on schools. I welcome the fact that at this late stage in consideration of the Bill, Ministers are prepared to accept that there is room for movement and scope for relaxation of the law. We can therefore make progress on removing an irksome, if minor, aspect of regulation that impinges on schools. I welcome the extent to which the Government have changed their position, but I wish that the problem could have been dealt with earlier, as clearing it up would have saved us and another place time.

Mr. Mole

I, too, welcome the reduction in the prescriptive arrangements for annual parents meetings. The hon. Member for Altrincham and Sale, West (Mr. Brady) asked whether I had met any head teachers recently. I was a governor until just after my election at the beginning of this year, which is pertinent to our debate because, like many governors up and down the country, I have spent many happy evenings sitting with my colleagues, consuming small mountains of peanuts, Twiglets and cheese and small lakes of wine and coffee as we waited for parents to come to meetings, the agendas for which were prescribed under the previous Government, as the Opposition pointed out.

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That was a dispiriting experience for my governor colleagues. We have talked about the challenge of recruiting and retaining teachers, but there also remains a challenge about recruiting and retaining school governors. Dry, prescriptive agendas for things like annual parents meetings tend to put governors off. Occasionally, however, it is right that there should be an opportunity for governors to hear parents' voices. When, under the previous Government, the school where I was last a governor wanted, for sensible budgetary reasons, to change the number of days of swimming that it could offer during the year, a sizeable number of parents managed to come and register their concerns.

Mr. George Osborne

The hon. Gentleman's experience as a governor is illuminating. Could he throw some light on his point about the retention of governors by explaining why he ceased to be a governor?

Mr. Mole

When I became MP for Ipswich, I did not believe that I would have enough time in my constituency to attend governors meetings. I should be interested to know how many Members retain such a role and believe that they do it justice.

The annual parents meeting provides an opportunity for parents to raise issues with governors. I believe that my hon. Friend the Minister has said that the framework introduced by the previous Government was carried over into the Bill, but accepts that it should be looked at again, thus giving schools a welcome flexibility on things like school plays, cheese and wine evenings and fairs or any opportunity that allows the schools to bring parents in and hear their views.

Mr. Brady

My understanding was that the Minister was concerned that schools should not count a school play, sports day or cheese and wine evening as the annual meeting.

Mr. Mole

I did not hear the Minister say that, nor was I suggesting that he did. We want such events to provide an opportunity for the annual parents meeting to be held at the same time. My understanding is that such an arrangement may have been prescriptively precluded by the previous framework.

Mr. Andrew Turner

Does the hon. Gentleman accept that although the framework may preclude holding the annual parents meeting at the same time as a play, it does not preclude holding it before or after a play, or before or after a social event? Many governors, governing bodies and head teachers have exercised considerable ingenuity in trying to attract parents to annual meetings by running them alongside, or at the beginning or end of, other functions.

Mr. Mole

The hon. Member for Tatton (Mr. Osborne) asked what interests school governors in remaining school governors. I suggest that they are motivated by the chance to raise standards and improve opportunities for the children in the school, not by the challenge of finding creative ways of circumnavigating the prescriptive legislation introduced a number of years ago by the Government whom the hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Mr. Turner) and his hon. Friends supported.

I welcome the Minister's suggestion that he will look for ways of giving schools new flexibility to strengthen the partnership between parents and governors. We all know that the most successful schools are the ones where there is that tripartite, if not a quadripartite, partnership, primarily between heads, governors and parents, but also with the local education authority. I welcome the proposals.

Mr. Willis

We on the Liberal Democrat Benches wholeheartedly support the amendment. We consider it a sensible compromise that takes us forward. On the previous set of amendments, we discussed the need to get rid of bureaucracy. The current arrangements are a classic example; they clearly have not worked and need to go.

I had to organise a set of annual parents meetings, and I did so with great dread. I remember that in one round of parents meetings in 1996 in Leeds, the average number of parents who came was 10, and in some cases, we did not get a single parent attending the annual parents meeting, so I welcome the changes. However, they do not remove one of the great challenges facing all of us: how do we engage parents in the schools?

The hon. Member for Ipswich (Mr. Mole) made a number of references to the prescriptive nature of the previous Conservative Government. I believe that the existing provisions were a genuine attempt to engage parents in what was happening in school, but it did not work. My worry is that we are in danger of saying, "Phew! That's that out of the way. Let's fall back and not engage our parents." One of the sadnesses, to me, is that whenever we have formal meetings with parents, it is usually because there is a crisis over the swimming or over something that has occurred because of an Ofsted report.

I am reminded that when I was recently in the United States, in North Carolina, the head of one school was talking about parents meetings and said about public meetings, "Few people ever come with affirmation in their minds." There is some truth in that. We need to encourage parents to come into school with affirmation and with questioning in their mind.

I support subsection (3) and we look forward to those regulations. Will the Minister give the House a guarantee that he will consider the annual report to parents? The requirements for that are incredibly prescriptive. I can remember the first year that I did an annual report to parents. I covered all that the Government said we had to do, and it ran to about 15 pages. When I started to condense it, it became a meaningless document, rather like an "In Touch" leaflet from the Conservatives. I ask the Minister to include—possibly when the matter returns to the House of Lords—a simple additional subsection deregulating the annual report to parents. We welcome the initiative.

Mr. Andrew Turner

I, too, support the broad thrust of the Government's proposal in respect of annual parents meetings. It is important not to allow the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Mr. Willis) to fail to take credit where credit is due. In my experience, an annual parents meeting that is badly attended is a sign of a well run school, and a sign that parents in general are happy with the way in which the school is being managed, and with the way in which the governors and head teacher are conducting affairs.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education and Skills (Mr. Stephen Twigg)

Not necessarily.

Mr. Turner

I notice that hon. Members on the Government Benches shake their heads at that assertion. I hope that they do not wish to condemn the performance of the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough in his previous incarnation. I accept that on occasions it is difficult to provide the open and welcoming atmosphere, or perhaps schools are less successful at providing the open and welcoming atmosphere that they should provide to encourage parents to attend the annual parents meeting. On those occasions, I am sure that a little lubrication of the kind referred to by the hon. Member for Ipswich (Mr. Mole)—or even a lake of lubrication—may be helpful.

The thrust of the Government's amendment is right. However, I echo the remark of my hon. Friend the Member for Altrincham and Sale, West about the possibility of a back-up. If the Government decided to remove all requirements for the governors to hold a parents meeting annually, perhaps they would consider a back-up provision enabling parents to require such a meeting to be held if they so wished. I can think of certain circumstances in which the Government might consider that appropriate, especially in the case of the exercise of powers to suspend the statutory requirements in clause 2.

If the governors were, for example, seeking the Secretary of State's approval to suspend the statutory requirement that prevents them from charging for certain school functions, that might be a matter on which parents should be empowered to call a meeting. Alternatively, the Government might set that down as an exemption of a governing body from the requirement to call an annual parents meeting.

It is important to recognise that we have a mixed economy of schools, not only in terms of the huge—and, indeed, burgeoning—number of different types of school that the Government propose, some of which reflect rather well on what went on between 1988 and 1997, but in terms of the amount of choice that parents have. Frequently, my suggestion that Government and local education authorities should allow parents greater choice has been countered by the assertion that if choice cannot be provided in rural areas, it is wrong for it to be provided in urban areas. That is tantamount to saying that because we cannot provide choice everywhere, we should provide choice nowhere.

I do not take that view at all. Indeed, I should have thought that where there is less choice, there needs to be marginally more safeguards and more prescription, but where there is great choice, that is exactly the sort of condition in which there needs to be less prescription and fewer safeguards, because parents have the safeguards in their own hands. They can choose schools of different ethos, different appearance—

Madam Deputy Speaker

Order. May I remind the hon. Gentleman of the amendment that we are discussing? He seems to be going rather wide of it.

Mr. Turner

Indeed, Madam Deputy Speaker; I am grateful for your guidance. One of the bases on which such choice may be exercised is whether a school decides of its own volition to hold an annual parents meeting.

I, too, support the broad thrust of the amendment, but I am interested to know whether a change of the sort that it proposes would have to lead to the promulgation of a new set of regulations or whether existing regulations could be cross-applied. In the context of the previous amendment, we might need to consider whether consultation on the new regulations would in itself place a new burden on teachers, heads and governors.

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Mr. Miliband

This has been rather a good debate and I shall put aside the voluminous facts and figures that I have been given to help me to rebut the outrageous claims of the hon. Member for Altrincham and Sale, West (Mr. Brady) about the desultory nature of the Committee stage. I shall put them aside in the interests of the new co-operative spirit that is pervading our discussion.

What we are talking about is getting the right balance between encouraging all governing bodies to have a genuine partnership with their parent communities and regulation that is "irksome"—a word used by the hon. Member for Altrincham and Sale, West that I want to return to later. The Government have acknowledged that annual parents meetings have been over-regulated in the past and have genuinely listened to the concerns expressed about meetings. We think that we have come up with a workable solution by deregulating some processes and procedures and limiting the bureaucracy associated with the meetings.

The amendment is an example of where the Government's much-maligned approach in the Bill may serve a purpose, as it gives us scope to go further in future in relieving more schools of the duty to hold meetings where they have already given parents the opportunity to have their say. That will benefit schools, while ensuring that we retain the essential right of parents to question the governing body and the head teacher about the way in which their child's school is run. That is why I return to the notion of balance. We want to keep a situation in which parents have some weapons in their armoury to ensure that accountability is maintained.

The hon. Member for Altrincham and Sale, West took us back to the happy days of his amendment that was never discussed in January and February and to his presumption of not having a meeting. Despite my new role, something in me thinks that introducing legislation not to do something or with a presumption that something will not be done is a rather backward way of doing things. We are trying to express our presumption that school governing bodies should have a genuine partnership with their parenting communities, and we want to give them different ways of giving effect to that intention. He may come to think that his use of the word "irksome" in relation to parental meetings may be slightly over the top. There are many examples of parental meetings that work well and we should not denigrate the efforts that go into making them a success and a useful part of parent-governor dialogue.

Mr. Brady

First, I am sure that the Minister will agree that a requirement to hold a parents meeting may appear irksome to a school in the circumstances to which the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Mr. Willis) referred, in which no parent attends the meeting. The regulation may certainly be irksome in that context. Secondly, he dealt only with the first half of the amendment that was never moved—the presumption that there would not ordinarily be a parents meeting. May I ask him for his thoughts on the second part, however, and the idea of a positive mechanism in which a requisite number of parents would have to ask for such a meeting?

Mr. Miliband

The hon. Gentleman anticipates me. If he will forgive me, I shall come to that point in a few moments.

The hon. Gentleman asked about the criteria for exempting schools from the requirement to hold a parents meeting. The overriding criterion must be that there is evidence to show that a genuine partnership exists between the governing body and the parental community. There is a need to prove that that relationship exists. I am in danger of skiing off-piste, so I must be slightly careful, but I shall give some examples of what might count as evidence of genuine partnership. There might be year-group sessions in which parents from different years are brought together to discuss provision for a particular year group. When a school is trying to achieve serious dialogue with parents in different year groups, it would seem odd subsequently to force a great gathering of the whole school. That is just one example that springs to mind. Different schools may organise different patterns of meetings. There may be discussion forums in which parents are brought together to discuss different aspects of the school's policy.

It may also be worth our while to think about cases in which the governors' attempts to hold meetings have not been successful. Perhaps we need to think about whether that indicates that the governors are not trying hard enough or not offering the right sort of wine and cheese—or pie and peas in my part of the world—but it may also be evidence to suggest that such meetings are not an appropriate way of achieving the sort of discussion and dialogue that we want.

In terms of the overriding criterion of partnership, but a keenness to find ways of achieving it that are appropriate to the school, I should like to refer to the notion of the trigger mechanism mentioned by the hon. Member for Altrincham and Sale, West both today and in his amendment. If we are convinced that our overriding criterion of partnership is fulfilled—it must be evident before exemption is given—the trigger mechanism will not be necessary. If there is genuine partnership, it will be the reason why there does not have to be an annual meeting. Layering a new load of bureaucracy on top by introducing a trigger mechanism is over-egging the pudding.

Mr. Willis

rose

Mr. Miliband

I am about to come to the hon. Gentleman's point about annual reports, which I find very exciting.

Mr. Willis

I am delighted that I have been able to excite the Minister. Before he leaves the trigger mechanism, may I ask him to think very carefully before introducing such a provision? A trigger mechanism that can be invoked by 10 parents may cause a real problem, especially in schools where groups of militant parents have an axe to grind as regards a particular teacher.

Mr. Miliband

I apologise for not articulating my point clearly enough. We do not propose to introduce a trigger mechanism. [Interruption.] I assure the hon. Gentleman that when I say that we do not intend to do it, that means that we do not intend to do it. We are in happy agreement in that respect.

The hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Mr. Turner) urged us to trust markets rather than dialogue as the answer to the need for proper links between governing bodies and parents, but one cannot rely on parental choice alone to provide the sort of engagement that we are seeking to promote. It is an important part of the equation, but the right to exercise a voice, as well as a choice, is an important part of the schooling process, and we should welcome the chance for parents to have a serious and deep involvement in their children's education. I would be very wary of pretending that markets can substitute for that dialogue.

I conclude with the exciting point about annual reports. If the word "irksome" can be applied to parents meetings, for many schools the annual report requirements are indeed irksome. My hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich (Mr. Mole) hinted at that when he suggested using the provision and the regulations that will follow it to think broadly about how we can achieve the right sort of light-touch involvement from the centre. I have glad tidings for the House—the Bill already provides an opportunity to deregulate annual reports. That is not a birthday or Christmas present, but merely continuing evidence of the Government's serious commitment to deregulation for which the House affirmed its support only half an hour ago. That power to deregulate annual reports is the merit of the approach that we have taken in moving the detail of the Bill to regulations. I must provide some context for my glad tidings. Hon. Members will have to agree to pass regulations to achieve the deregulation of annual reports that has gained support across the House.

I assure the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough that we want to consider the structure of annual reports in terms of what is required, when it is required and how they are required to be written. We can try to ensure that that accountability operates without in any way undermining a school's accountability to its parent community.

Mr. Mole

If my hon. Friend were to take that path, it would be another factor that would aid the recruitment and retention of school governors.

Mr. Miliband

We all owe a debt to our school governors, and we want to make their contribution as productive as possible. Let us consider annual reports, but let us not, when the time comes, score points against each other about the regulation that may be required to achieve that important step forward.

Lords amendment disagreed to.

Government amendment (a) in lieu agreed to.

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