Lords Sitting of 24 February 1992

Preamble
The House met at half-past two of the clock: The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayer—Read by the Lord Bishop of Lichfield.

War Crimes Act: Administration
Lord Boyd-Carpenter Lord Boyd-Carpenter asked Her Majesty's Government:
What is the total expenditure in the current year on the administration of the War Crimes Act; what expenditure is planned for next year; and how many prosecutions have been started.
The Minister of State, Home Office (Earl Ferrers): My Lords, the estimated cost for the financial year 1991–92 is £1.03 million in England and Wales and £400,000 in Scotland. For the next financial year the estimated cost is £10.2 million in England and Wales and £1.23 million in Scotland. No prosecutions have yet been started.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that Answer. Does it not show that in the recent dispute with another place this House was right?
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, there is no relationship between the two matters.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: My Lords, do the estimated costs for next year include the estimated costs of prosecution?
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, the estimated costs for next year include the sum of £2.5 million for the Crown Prosecution Service.
Lord Strabolgi: My Lords, as the legislation was passed by another place with large majorities on at least five occasions and was later subject to the
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Parliament Acts, should not the will of the elected Chamber prevail? Will the Government confirm that the investigations will be continued at all possible speed?
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, Parliament has methods for deciding which business should be passed. This business was passed by Parliament and it is the Government's intention to see that Parliament's intention is carried through.
Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone: My Lords, given that under the Parliament Acts the will of the elected Chamber has prevailed, had we not better wait to see the outcome before we decide who was right on the merits?
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, I fancy that each of your Lordships will have his own opinion as to who is right. The fact is that Parliament passed the Act and it is now the Government's duty to put Parliament's wishes into effect.
Lord Shaughnessy: My Lords, in view of the dismal experience in Australia and Canada over prosecutions under similar war crimes legislation, does not the Minister believe that the time has come to put an end to the pursuit of retribution that the legislation proposes?
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, Parliament in its wisdom decided upon the course of action to be taken. That course of action is being taken. Whether the experience of Canada and Australia has any bearing is another matter. It would not be right to comment upon cases which are tried in other jurisdictions where the framing of the legislation may not necessarily be comparable with ours.
Lord Richard: My Lords, I was one who voted for the passage of the Bill in the House, but £10.2 million for next year seems a great deal of money. Will the Minister tell us upon what it is being spent?
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, I agree, it does seem to be a great deal of money: £1.5 million is being spent on

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the police, as compared with £930,000 this year; £2.5 million on the CPS; £900,000 on the Lord Chancellor's Department; and £5.3 million on legal aid. Those last two figures do not feature in the estimates for the current year.
Lord Annan: My Lords, are not the fees being raised for the benefit of the legal profession?
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, I do not believe that there is any correlation between the two in that question either.
Lord Richard: My Lords, as no one has yet been prosecuted, who is receiving £5.3 million in legal aid?
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, that is the provision for next year.
Lord Grimond: My Lords, are any prosecutions pending?
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, a great deal of investigation is going on. When the investigation concludes in such a way as to require a prosecution, there will then be a prosecution. We are not in that position.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords, how many cases are under investigation at the moment?
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, 300 cases were identified by the Hetherington-Chalmers parliamentary inquiry. Since then, a further 43 cases have been brought to the attention of the Metropolitan Police War Crimes Unit. All those cases have been reviewed, and 114 cases are under investigation.
Lord Wilberforce: My Lords, what was the cost of the Scottish court's recent excursion to Eastern Europe to take evidence?
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, that is a civil case which has nothing to do with a criminal case.
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, what would the legal position be if a person suing for libel won his case and was the subject of a later charge of being a war criminal?
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, that is a hypothetical situation. I would not dream of commenting until we knew the result of a particular case.

Manufacturing Industry: Employment Figures
2.42 p.m.
Lord Dean of Beswick Lord Dean of Beswick asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether they will show the decline in numbers of those employed in the manufacturing industries for the last four quarters for which figures are available, both numerically and in percentage terms.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Employment (Viscount Ullswater): My
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Lords, in the four quarters to December 1991, the number of employees in employment in manufacturing industries in Great Britain fell by 97,000, 92,000, 87,000 and 59,000 respectively. Those figures represent falls of 2 per cent., 1.9 per cent., 1.8 per cent. and 1.2 per cent.
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for that reply. However, I believe it is rather misleading. I am not suggesting that the Minister is trying to mislead the House, but the figures he has just mentioned are misleading because the annual figures show that the number of jobs in manufacturing industries in Great Britain fell by 334,000 between September 1990 and September 1991. The number of jobs in manufacturing industries in Great Britain fell by 129,000 in the previous 12 months. That represents an increase of between 250 per cent. and 300 per cent. Is that not a dangerous situation and one that is far worse than that suffered by our major competitors? Would not the Government do better to pump some money into industry in an attempt to get the figures down rather than talk about a giveaway Budget?
Viscount Ullswater: My Lords, I believe the figures I gave are the answer to the Question tabled by the noble Lord on the Order Paper. Having said that, no one underestimates the difficulties that both businesses and individuals are facing in the present economic climate. However, it remains the case that the falling trend in manufacturing employment goes back to the mid-1960s. Falling manufacturing employment as a share of total employment is a common trend among all industrialised countries. Despite the recession in the past three months manufacturing output was still more than one-fifth higher than it was 10 years ago in 1981.
Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone: My Lords, is it not possible that the theory that one can cure unemployment by pumping money into industry depends on what will come out of the pumping and not what goes into it?
Viscount Ullswater: My Lords, that is correct. Manufacturing industry has some good success stories. Output from industry in the office machinery, electrical and instrument sector has increased by 61 per cent. over the past 10 years. However, employment in the industry has dropped by 20 per cent. One has to understand that output can increase but employment can sometimes go down.
Baroness Turner of Camden: My Lords, is not the Minister aware that both the Engineering Employers Federation and the TUC have been making recommendations for tax incentives to enable manufacturing industry to pick up again? Will the Minister bring the submissions of both those bodies to the attention of his right honourable friend?
Viscount Ullswater: My Lords, I am certain my right honourable friend is aware of those submissions. However, it is not for me to suggest what he might consider.
Lord Ezra: My Lords, does not the noble Viscount agree that the rate of decline in investment in manufacturing industry has exceeded the figures of the rate of decline of employment in this period? Does he not also agree that those two factors combined suggest that manufacturing industry in this country faces a serious future? Does that not require the most urgent attention?
Viscount Ullswater: My Lords, I believe investment was at a record high in 1989. Any fall from that can be measured accordingly. Investment is a matter of concern but I understand that figures will reveal that the UK share of world trade is likely to rise in 1991 for the third year running after decades of decline. Since 1979 the volume of manufactured exports has grown by over 90 per cent. and at a rate of over 5 per cent. a year. That is a good record.
Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos: My Lords, during the tenure of the noble Lord, Lord Young of Graffham, as Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, we were constantly told by him at Question Time that the decline in manufacturing industry that was taking place year by year throughout the 1980s would be made good by the contribution of the service industry. Is that still the philosophy of the Government?
Viscount Ullswater: My Lords, I cross swords with the noble Lord the Leader of the Opposition. When he talks about the decline in manufacturing he may be referring to the decline in the employment figures in manufacturing industry. Manufacturing has remained consistently at just under 25 per cent. of GDP throughout the past 10 years. Manufacturing has not declined. Certainly there may have been a loss of 1 million jobs in manufacturing over the decade, but that has been compensated for by an increase of 2 million jobs in the service industry.
Lord Gisborough: My Lords, is it not the case that the reduction in manpower in the manufacturing sector has made our manufacturing industries more efficient and therefore we have been able to sell more goods?
Viscount Ullswater: My Lords, the latest figures for manufacturing productivity show a sharp improvement over the past few months. In the year to the three months ending December 1991 manufacturing productivity rose by 3.3 per cent.
Lord Mason of Barnsley: My Lords, is the Minister aware that the CBI has confirmed that Britain is experiencing the worst recession since the last war? Is he further aware that the figures he has just revealed to the House show that over 360,000 jobs were lost in manufacturing last year? During the same period investment in manufacturing fell by 15 per cent. Industrial production in the same period fell by 2.9 per cent. and yet it increased in Japan by 2.3 per cent. and in Germany by 3.2 per cent. Why is it that Britain suffers so badly compared with our international trade competitors?
Viscount Ullswater: My Lords, the noble Lord tells a very interesting tale. I have to ask myself why it is
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that improvements in productivity, industrial relations and the general economic environment have made the United Kingdom an attractive destination for overseas investment. America and Japan have the whole of Europe to consider, but between 1988 and 1990 the United Kingdom accounted for 46 per cent. of all US investment in the European Community and 48 per cent. of Japanese investment. If all that the noble Lord said was correct, why do they favour this country as the right place to invest?
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, when will the Government abandon as their first priority the aim of making Britain a country in which bankers can live? Why do they not give the appropriate priority, which the people of the country as a whole demand, to the manufacturing and construction sections of British industry?
Viscount Ullswater: My Lords, the Government's first priority is the defeat of inflation. That is to the benefit not only of industry but also our citizens.
Lord Rochester: My Lords, does the noble Viscount agree with the principle that training and retraining should be increased when unemployment rises so that the skill level of the workforce is at least maintained against the tendency of unemployment to reduce it? If so, can he explain why the Government have just decided to reduce expenditure on training by £170 million next year in real terms?
Viscount Ullswater: My Lords, of course it is important that the levels of skills should be kept up to date and that re-skilling should take place. However, I do not entirely agree with the noble Lord. In times of high unemployment it is important to get people back to work. Those who have current skills are given every opportunity, through Employment Action and job clubs, to get hack into the workforce rather than learning a new skill.
Lord Molloy: My Lords, why do not the Government take into consideration the social aspects of the issue, such as repossessions and unemployment, which affect thousands or even millions of families? The figures which have been quoted may or may not be accurate—one does not know precisely—but the fundamental issue is that high unemployment and a high rate of repossessions do our country no good at all. The Government refuse to face up to that fact.
Viscount Ullswater: My Lords, that is why my first supplementary answer started with the words:
"no one underestimates the difficulties that both businesses and individuals are facing in the present economic climate".
Lord Peyton of Yeovil: My Lords, does not my noble friend find it surprising that such questions should come from the party opposite? Perhaps they indicate only a loss of memory on the part of noble Lords opposite.
Viscount Ullswater: My Lords, I can only answer the Questions put down on the Order Paper.
Baroness Turner of Camden: My Lords, is the Minister not aware that by the late 1980s investment in British manufacturing industry had barely

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recovered to the 1979 level and is now in sharp decline, in contrast with all our European partners such as Germany, France, Italy and other countries in the EC?
Viscount Ullswater: My Lords, if we look at the whole of the 1980s, between 1980 and 1990 growth in the United Kingdom was faster than in France, Italy or Germany. That compares with the 1960s and 1970s when the United Kingdom was bottom of the EC growth table.

Nuclear Capability
2.53 p.m.
Lord Jenkins of Putney Lord Jenkins of Putney asked Her Majesty's Government:
Why they consider it necessary to increase the British nuclear capability when other states, including the United States, are reducing or seeking to dismantle and dispose of their nuclear weapons.
Earl Howe: My Lords, the Government are committed to the principle of minimum nuclear deterrence. The Trident programme is entirely consistent with that. The prospective reductions in the superpower arsenals will reverse a nuclear arms race in which the United Kingdom was never a participant.
Lord Jenkins of Putney: My Lords, why do the Government consider it necessary to build up to a destructive power some 3,000 times that of the Hiroshima bomb at a time when the majority of states—including Australia, Canada, Germany and Japan—are without such a weapon? If those countries do not possess nuclear weapons why do the Government feel it necessary at this time to increase our nuclear capability to such a stupendous extent?
Earl Howe: My Lords, the calculation of our minimum deterrent need has to allow for anti-ballistic missile defences. The CIS deploys the world's only operational system. At present it is limited by treaty to 100 launchers, but that may be renegotiated. The intentions of the present Russian Government are not at issue but we have to bear in mind the systems which could be deployed over the next 30 years.
Lord Mellish: My Lords, will the Minister be good enough to confirm to the House that our deterrent, in comparison with those of the Americans and the Russians, is negligible?
Earl Howe: My Lords, the noble Lord makes a very good point. We are not in the superpower league. President Bush's proposals imply the United States retaining over 2,000 warheads in 18 submarines, and that is only one of three legs of America's strategic triad. Our four-boat Trident force is our only strategic system and it will ensure that only one submarine, with no more than 128 warheads, is on station. There is no comparison.
Lord Marlesford: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that many of us on this side of the House are convinced that for four decades the nuclear stalemate
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kept the peace and that it is essential in the uncertain times following the dissolution of the Soviet empire to make sure that our independent nuclear deterrent is up to date? Does he agree that if the Labour Party—in whose government the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins, served as a distinguished Minister—is in any way ambivalent or doubtful on that point that would be a very good reason for it not to be elected?
Earl Howe: My Lords, my noble friend made a very good point. Even assuming that the cuts which have been proposed are agreed, we estimate that the Russians could retain at least 15 times the number of nuclear warheads which the UK will have even after Trident has been brought into service.
Lord Williams of Elvel: My Lords, can the noble Earl confirm that the whole point of the new Trident programme is to be able to penetrate the ABM defences around Moscow? If so—and as I understand it that is the only justification for Trident; otherwise we would be content with the Polaris fleet and the Polaris capability—can the noble Earl conceive of any circumstances in which we would wish to make such a strike without the co-operation of the United States and outside NATO?
Earl Howe: My Lords, the noble Lord asked a hypothetical question. The increasing likelihood of a revision of the ABM treaty, with the possibility of consequent further improvements in ABM defences, confirms the wisdom of replacing Polaris with a successor force capable of ensuring our minimum deterrent needs.
Lord Mayhew: My Lords, the Minister mentioned Trident, but why do the Government in addition insist on spending huge sums of money on a new airborne sub-strategic nuclear weapon system, especially when the same role could be performed perfectly well by Trident at no extra cost?
Earl Howe: My Lords, we have discussed that very question in this House on many occasions. Trident is a strategic system. The great advantage of a submarine-based strategic deterrent, provided there are sufficient boats to maintain a continuous patrol, is its ability to remain undetected until its use and hence its virtual invulnerability to pre-emptive attack. Using Trident for a sub-strategic strike would increase the risk of the submarine being detected, thus exposing our strategic capability to the danger of pre-emption.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords, will we be able to target our nuclear deterrent without the assistance of United States satellites? If not, will it be truly independent?
Earl Howe: My Lords, the UK deterrent is and will remain operationally independent and under the absolute control of Her Majesty's Government. Although we have undertaken that the system will be operated in defence of NATO, we have reserved the right to use it independently of that role if supreme national interests so require.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords, will the noble Earl please answer my question? He did not answer it.

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It is no good muttering. I want an answer to my question. I asked the noble Earl whether it was possible for our deterrent to be targeted without the assistance of United States satellites. Will he answer that question please?
Earl Howe: My Lords, the United Kingdom has its own national targeting capability. It is inappropriate for me to discuss the details.
Lord Mayhew: My Lords, arising from the reply which the noble Earl gave to me about the vulnerability of Trident under sea, does he suggest that Trident under the surface is more vulnerable than the airfields and aircraft whose position is known and which will be built under the Government's plan?
Earl Howe: My Lords, the Government have taken no decision on the sub-strategic system that we may wish to order once our stock of free-fall bombs has been phased out. What I said was that once a nuclear submarine is used for any type of strike, the position of that submarine becomes all the more apparent. It is therefore more vulnerable.
Lord Jenkins of Putney: My Lords, is the noble Earl aware that, although quite a large number of people continue to think—I believe mistakenly—that it is necessary for this country to continue to possess nuclear weapons, an increasing number of people do not think it necessary for this country to keep strategic nuclear weapons? Will he address himself to that point? What is the use of this country possessing a strategic nuclear weapon at a time when other countries are dispensing with it? As my noble friend pointed out, it is inconceivable that this country would operate without the agreement of the United States. Why cannot we leave it to the United States in the unlikely event of a strategic nuclear weapon being required?
Earl Howe: My Lords, the answer to the noble Lord's question is common sense. There have been many encouraging changes in the security environment in recent years. But those same changes have brought about their own risks and uncertainties. I believe that it would be quite disastrous for the Government to abandon a long-standing policy held by successive governments.

Asylum Bill: Legislative Timetable
3.2 p.m.
Lord Ennals Lord Ennals asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether it is still their intention to proceed with the Asylum Bill.
Earl Ferrers: Yes, my Lords.
Lord Ennals: My Lords, if the Government intend to proceed with the Bill, why have they not fixed a date for the Committee stage in order that this House may proceed with it? Cannot the Government make up their mind or has the impending election not left them time? Why will the Prime Minister not announce the date of the election so that the uncertainty in the country can be ended?
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, the noble Lord asked me to tell him the date of the general election. I have no intention of telling him, even if I knew it, and I do not. The noble Lord asked why the Government do not make up their mind. The Government have made up their mind to continue with the Asylum Bill. The reason why it has not appeared on the Order Paper so far is a matter of priorities.
Lord Renton: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that the privilege of asylum in this country has been and is being abused on a large scale? Does he agree that his statement that the Government propose to proceed with the Bill is very welcome?
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for that assurance and encouragement. The facts are that 4,000 people applied for asylum in 1988; 22,000 applied in 1990 and 45,000 applications were made in 1991. Those figures do not include dependants.
Lord Richard: My Lords, can the Minister confirm that if the election is held on 9th April it will not be possible to proceed with the Asylum Bill this side of the election? If so, may I congratulate the Government on abandoning that ill-advised measure?
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, the noble Lord should avoid the temptation of being too speculative. He will see from the programme of future events that, provided the Opposition are in agreement, the Bill will be placed on the programme of forthcoming events.
Lord Ennals: My Lords, if it was not the Government's intention to have the Bill passed through both Houses, why was it introduced? Why have not the Government suggested a date for us to proceed? Does he agree that it is absolutely absurd that there is a commitment to the Bill yet the Bill is simply not introduced into this House?
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, the noble Lord asks why will the Government not make up their mind. As I told him, the Government have made up their mind. They wish to introduce the Bill and see it on the statute book. The noble Lord knows perfectly well that there is a priority for legislation and the Bill has to take its place in the queue. The noble Lord need not worry too much. If the Bill does not get in this side of the election, it will get in the next side of it, because the present Government will be in place.
Lord Harris of Greenwich: My Lords, is the noble Earl aware that some noble Lords are a little puzzled by his replies? A few moments ago he said that it was a matter of priorities. Does that mean that the Education (Schools) Bill deserves, in the Government's view, to take priority over the Asylum Bill, notwithstanding the view of the noble Lord, Lord Beloff, that the Education (Schools) Bill was a wholly silly Bill and the silliest Bill that any Parliament had ever had to consider?
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, the noble Lord is puzzled by my answer, but I cannot think why. It was perfectly straightforward. He mentioned my noble friend Lord

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Beloff, who makes his own speeches and is responsible for them. The noble Lord, Lord Harris, will see the Bill. He need not worry too much.

Business
3.6 p.m.
Lord Hesketh: My Lords, it may be for the convenience of the House to know that the Committee stage of the Education (Schools) Bill will be adjourned at about 7 p.m. for about one hour and that during this adjournment the Second Reading of the Social Security (Mortgage Interest Payments) Bill will be taken.

Firearms (Amendment) Bill
Brought from the Commons on Friday last; printed pursuant to Standing Order 48, and read a first time.

Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Bill [H.L.]
The Lord Chancellor (Lord Mackay of Clashfern): My Lords, I understand that no amendments have been set down to this Bill and that no noble Lord has indicated a wish to move a manuscript amendment or to speak in Committee. Therefore, unless any noble Lord objects, I beg to move that the order of recommitment be discharged.
Moved, That the order of recommitment be discharged.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Protection of Badgers Bill [H.L.]
The Lord Chancellor: My Lords, I understand that no amendments have been set down to this Bill and that no noble Lord has indicated a wish to move a manuscript amendment or to speak in Committee. Therefore, unless any noble Lord objects, I beg to move that the order of recommitment be discharged.
Moved, That the order of recommitment be discharged.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Carriage of Goods by Sea Bill [H.L.]
Lord Goff of Chieveley: My Lords, I understand that no amendments have been set down to this Bill and that no noble Lord has indicated a wish to move a manuscript amendment or to speak in Committee. Therefore, unless any noble Lord objects, I beg to move that the order of commitment be discharged.
Moved, That the order of commitment be discharged.—(Lord Goff of Chieveley.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Education (Schools) Bill
3.8 p.m.
The Minister of State, Department of the Environment (Baroness Blatch): My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now resolve itself into Committee on this Bill.
Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(Baroness Blatch.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES in the Chair.]
Clause 1 [Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Schools in England]:
Baroness Blackstone Baroness Blackstone moved Amendment No. 1:
Page 1, line 6, at beginning insert:
("( ) The following provisions of this section shall have effect after the making of an order by the Secretary of State, and no such order shall be made before the laying before Parliament of a comprehensive review of arrangements for the inspection of schools in England and Wales.").
The noble Baroness said: In moving this amendment I shall speak also to Amendment No. 10. Amendment No. 10 is exactly the same amendment but it refers to Wales rather than England. Perhaps I should first indicate that there is great concern in Wales about the Bill. There is a belief that the Welsh system of education is being dragged down by the English system. We hope that the Government will accept amendments that make the Bill more acceptable in both countries. However, if they are unable to agree amendments that make it more acceptable, I give notice that at a later stage we may wish to move amendments that will remove Clauses 5 and 8 from the Bill and treat Wales in the same way as Scotland so that it is not exposed to some of the less attractive aspects of the legislation that is before us.
I turn to Amendments Nos. 1 and 10. A thorough internal review of Her Majesty's Inspectorate was announced by the Secretary of State on 8th May 1991. The review followed the decision by the previous senior chief inspector, Mr. Eric Bolton, to take early retirement and a public advertisement for his successor. It was conducted by three middle-ranking DES officials including one HMI. The review's conclusions were made known to Ministers in July last year. No invitation was made to the local authorities to make submissions to the review team. Nor was the advice of many outside experts sought. The review has never been published although it was leaked to the Independent newspaper which published extracts from it on 14th November 1991.
The Secretary of State sought to justify the decision not to publish the review on the principle that advice from officials to Ministers is confidential. Indeed, that is what he argued in the Second Reading debate in the House of Commons on 19th November 1991. One of the issues that emerged from the leak is the review's recommendation on how many HMIs at national level would be needed. There has been a considerable amount of public debate about the fact that the review recommended that there should be 380 HMIs. The

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Government have clearly chosen to ignore that recommendation although other recommendations in the review appear to have been accepted.
From what we can gather, the review is a thoroughly had piece of work done in great haste and without any deep thinking. The article in the Independent states:
"Had the report been published it would have been torn to shreds. The reason is simple: it does not even refer to, let alone address, the central argument against the system that the Government is now legislating to create",
namely, that governing bodies can choose their own inspectors. The Independent article continues:
"No important item of legislation should ever be presented to Parliament on such a slender analysis of the options available. The report concentrates completely on advocating Mr. Clarke's preferred approach—so much so, that it seems like a vehicle for confirming and elaborating on a decision which had already been taken".
Not only is the review of Her Majesty's Inspectorate of July 1991 apparently a weak report, with less than two pages devoted to the alternative of expanding Her Majesty's Inspectorate into a national agency inspecting all schools with its own staff, but the fact also remains that the Education (Schools) Bill is unique in being a major piece of legislation that has not been preceded by some form of proper consultation.
Ministers may say that The Citizen's Charter published in July last year was a form of consultation. But once again it would be difficult to say that any consultation on that document was conducted in a serious fashion by Ministers. The deadline for responses to The Citizen's Charter was after the publication of the Bill. In those circumstances how could we possibly call it serious consultation?
The National Association of Governors and Managers, whose members are profoundly affected by the Bill, and the main parents' organisations were not consulted. A matter as important for the nation's education as the monitoring of standards through inspections should have been the subject of consultation. There should have been a Green Paper, if not a White Paper, preceding publication of the Bill giving people time to respond and to say what they felt about it and to put forward alternative suggestions.
Instead, a review was initiated last May and given only two months in which to report. Apparently the review concedes that those who were consulted—there were not many—considered that the body best suited to undertake independent and objective inspections is Her Majesty's Inspectorate. If that is true, is it not amazing that we have before us a Bill which decimates HMI and sets up an untried system which is flawed in principle? The purpose of the amendments is to ensure the publication of the DES review of HMI before the Bill is implemented and before the role of HMI is fundamentally changed. I beg to move.
Lord Ritchie of Dundee: I, too, wish to speak to the amendment from these Benches. It is a subject which threatens to involve too long a debate for the Committee stage in this Chamber. I therefore shall be as brief as possible.
School inspections should be thorough, expert, constructive and supportive, independent and reasonably frequent. Over the years HMI has fulfilled all
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those needs except the last. With that exception it has been a centre of excellence. I believe that that is almost universally acknowledged. It has constituted a tradition like the Brigade of Guards or Eton.
Local authority inspections have been variable. They have greatly improved during the past two or three years. My own county, East Sussex, has brought such inspections to a high state of efficiency. The inspectorate pays regular visits. It produces annual reports. It publishes reviews of particular aspects of school work. It offers advice, development and support. It constitutes a partnership between schools, governing bodies and LEAs.
We appreciate that the inspections by HMI have been far too infrequent. But why not build on what we have? Why chuck out the baby with the bath water? Why cut off the head to cure the headache? Why choose a scheme which threatens standards? The inspection teams appear to lack expertise. Such a situation threatens national standards because those teams will lack consistency throughout the country. Why choose a scheme which threatens the integrity of the teams because of the commercial considerations? Why choose a scheme which exposes the inspections to the possibility of bias of one kind or another—educational bias or possibly racial or political bias?
So grave an issue should have been widely debated. As the noble Baroness said, it should have been the subject of a White Paper or even a Green Paper. It is not fitting that the subject should be treated as though it were some trumpery issue. I strongly support the amendment.
Lord Renfrew of Kaimsthorn: We have over 206 amendments to discuss at Committee stage. The heart sinks when the very first amendment that we discuss should be what I regard as a temporising amendment; namely, that before the Bill takes effect the Secretary of State shall write a report which will take a very long time. Other amendments before the Committee today, for instance, Amendments Nos. 10 and 99, are in similar form.
I am sure that a number of noble Lords have many anxieties about various aspects of the Bill. We shall debate them through amendments laid before us. The noble Baroness has touched on important points. However, I hope that Members of the Committee will not consider me cynical if I point out that the noble Baroness is a social scientist and was a very distinguished Professor of Educational Administration before taking up her present more distinguished position. The noble Lord, Lord Peston, who will speak to us on various amendments, is a macroeconomist. I am not sure whether it is to the advantage of progress that before the Bill is implemented we should have a report written by a social scientist or a macroeconomist, or whatever.
The Bill has been through a long Committee stage in the Commons. I believe that there were at least 13 sessions. We shall have the opportunity to debate the main elements in great detail in this Chamber. As in previous Bills that I have had the opportunity to discuss at Committee stage, the heart sinks when the first amendment suggests that a long report should be written before anything is done. I oppose the

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amendment for that reason rather than for the points of substance, which I am sure the noble Baroness will bring forward in her other amendments which are worth discussing tonight.
Earl Baldwin of Bewdley: I cannot agree with that argument because the Bill, taken together with ministerial statements, sets out to make radical changes in a key area of our educational system. It is vital that we get them right, even if that means spending more time beforehand.
What worries many of us, especially those who have been involved in the educational world, is the speed of the proposed changes, and the apparent lack of careful analysis in their preparation. It seems to me that, for this Bill to be justified, four underlying assumptions must be seen to be true: first, that the situation in our schools is serious; secondly, that LEAs and Her Majesty's Inspectorate are largely to blame for this and should play a reduced role from now on; thirdly, that a heavy formal inspection programme is the solution; and, fourthly, leading on from the first assumption, that the situation is so urgent that it cannot wait for a few months for proper professional consultations and a review of the options. I do not see otherwise how such a major upheaval can be supported.
In the presentation of the Government's case at Second Reading some of these assumptions were put forward, some were not stated, but I believe that none was convincingly backed by argument. In fact, I believe that all four are open to serious challenge. I agree that it is not appropriate to go into all the arguments now. Our point, in tabling this amendment, is that the debate still needs to take place. The unpublished DES review was certainly not an adequate substitute. I shall just try and briefly give a flavour of some of the considerations relating to formal inspections, especially by newly-formed teams, pausing only to comment on the way that the available evidence suggests that the overall situation in schools could fairly be described as "quite good", based as it is on a long and steady period of rising standards followed by an apparent fall in reading levels of a few percentage points at the upper infant stage, whose cause is unknown but tentatively thought to lie outside the schools themselves.
Formal inspection is a cumbersome weapon. Depending on how it is done, it can have advantages which are obvious, such as keeping teachers on their toes, and keeping track of trends and standards. What is not as obvious as it might seem is that formal inspections play an effective role in raising standards. The noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, pointed out on Second Reading that regular testing does not of itself bring about development. Some LEAs have inspectors, while others rely on an advisory service. I do not believe we have any evidence to show that those who have been inspected have done better than those who have been advised. The ILEA had a system of quite heavy inspections, and I do not believe the Government greatly admired its standards for all that.
HMI have always done much more than inspect. A retired inspector has written to me of the importance
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of the many non-reporting visits, the intimate contact with schools, on which are based the knowledge and understanding which inform the published reports. She has also stressed what a difficult and delicate task inspecting is. I know that it will take a moment but I should like to quote what she said because I think it is important. She said:
"after 30 years' experience I myself could seldom be quite sure that I had made the right assessment … and I believe that many of my former colleagues would say the same. To come anywhere near getting it right one needs constant experience of schools in situations where one is not required to pass … absolute judgments, plus the kind of cross-fertilisation … which comes from frequent discussion with colleagues and teachers from all over the country."
Much of this professionalism, and I might add, credibility, is to be thrown away without proper debate. I can imagine, too, that HMI may have difficulty recruiting people of suitable calibre to a job which will have lost much of its attraction, relying as it will mainly on second-hand news of schools, having lost its close contact with teachers and children. Instead we will have inspection of a kind, inevitably at a less reliable standard, but none of the backup that should go with it if real improvement is the goal. If a school is shown to be in trouble, the LEA will no longer be well placed to go in with a rescue operation of in-service training, and so on: the resources will not be there. In the past a good LEA would have had the central resources and know-how to forestall the problem before it developed. I foresee the possibility of professional stagnation, under the proposed model. It is, as I said at Second Reading, the authoritarian model, and its message will not be lost on an already somewhat demoralised profession. A United States study in 1989 on successful secondary schools made it clear that professionals needed to be committed to change rather than having it forced on them, and concluded that carrots work but sticks do not. If this particular stick comes round every four years the disruption will be considerable: I do not know on what professional advice this figure was based, and how inflexible it will be, but I think it is an unwise one in the case of a full and formal inspection.
On many counts, therefore, there is well-founded concern about what is being proposed. And I have here addressed only one of the four basic assumptions that underlit the Bill. It is, as the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Guildford said on Second Reading, a risky Bill. It is also, I am afraid, an amateurish one. I am no great believer in kowtowing to professions, and I welcome openness and bringing in the lay voice. But there are areas in education where technical knowledge is essential—the methodology of testing, whether individuals or whole schools, and the way of presenting accurately to your public the results you have found, are two areas of relevance to this Bill—and for the Government to proceed with a major reform on the basis that you can dispense with professional advice, whether from prejudice or pique or I know not what, is surely deeply unwise. It is for this reason that I support an amendment which will bring the arguments into the open and introduce, I hope, some much-needed rigour into the debate.
Lord Glenamara: The noble Lord, Lord Renfrew, said that he thought the two amendments—one referring to England and the other to Wales—were unnecessary. I believe that they are essential because this Government have not done what we expect all governments to do—that is, to justify legislation which they bring before Parliament. I have talked to many people up and down the country and no one can understand why this wretched Bill has been introduced. I understand that a review of the inspectorate has been carried out by the DES but we have not seen the report. No one has seen it because it has not been published. As a result, every educational body in the country has opposed the Bill—every single one. Nobody has supported it.
I listened to the Minister's memorable winding-up of the Second Reading debate. I stayed for the first 35 minutes but I could not stay for the last 10 minutes. I read the debate afterwards. Nowhere in that debate did she justify these ridiculous changes to the inspectorate. For that reason it is essential that we see the report before the Bill is implemented. The purpose of the two amendments is to enable Parliament to see, to read and to scrutinise the review of the inspectorate before the changes are made. That appears to me to be eminently sensible. Can the Government not accept that? Can they not try to retrieve something from the appalling mess of this Bill and accept these two amendments? That would be a perfectly sensible step and I hope that the Committee will agree to them.
Lord Dormand of Easington: My contribution will be in the nature of a question to the Minister. I hope that she will deal with it in some detail when replying to the debate. I am extremely puzzled about where all these new inspectors will come from. As an LEA education officer I had considerable dealings with inspectors. I found that their expertise, their dedication to the work and everything connected with it was absolutely first rate. During my time I never came across what one might describe as an incompetent HMI. The noble Baroness frowns and I am wondering how much experience she has in this area.
I understand that the Government have said that consultants will be able to provide the HMIs who will be required under the new set-up. During the Second Reading debate my noble friend Lady Blackstone said that she had spoken to a number of consultants who had told her that there was little possibility of their providing such people. I followed that up with my own inquiries and reached the same conclusion; that the provision of those HMIs will not be made. That issue is crucial to the whole business of privatising the inspection of schools. Therefore, I hope that the Minister will explain in detail how this important aspect of the proposal will be met.
3.30 p.m.
Baroness White: The Committee will be aware that the matters which we have been discussing concern Wales as well as England. There was a very long Written Answer in the other place from the Secretary
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of State for Wales, but a Written Answer is not an adequate response to Welsh anxieties about these matters.
I do not know whether there was a formal guillotine but I understand that the Welsh side of the matter was hardly discussed. That is what our colleagues in the other place tell us. What does the noble Baroness who is to reply to the debate know about the situation in Wales? I find it difficult to believe that she knows anything at all.
Lord Elton: My noble friend Lord Renfrew was right to call this a temporising measure because, regardless of the speeches that are being made, we are being asked to provide an occasion for a Second Reading debate as regards the introduction of the Bill's provisions. We appear to be doing so by having a third Second Reading debate now.
The Bill was read a second time and we should now be trying to ensure that it reaches the statute book in the best order possible. We should not leave that as a legacy for some future Parliament and perhaps another House of Parliament. I hope that the Committee will resist the amendment and that we can get on with discussing the other amendments.
Baroness Blatch: This amendment would delay our important reform until a review of the arrangements of school inspection had been presented to Parliament. I am not sure whether Members opposite would publish a review before their policy document. We have all heard unequivocal statements: "We will establish a standards council", "We will do this for school inspection", "We will do that for school inspection". However, nobody has said that that will be subject to a review, subject to a review of parents or subject to anything.
The need for reform is unarguable. We have said that for a long time. Parents have said it. I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Glenamara, does not believe it, but there are people outside who think it is important to know what is going on in our schools.
The noble Baroness and Members of the Committee opposite must accept that the problems of local school inspection and the activities of HMI are well documented. We now need not reviews but action.
There has been a review. The Audit Commission report in 1989 set out a sorry picture of local authority inspection in practice. HMI is monitoring progress. Indeed, there has been progress and the noble Lord, Lord Ritchie of Dundee, referred to his own authority which has made enormous strides in that respect. But as was mentioned at Second Reading, only one third of LEAs have inspection systems in place which offer the prospect of reliable reports. The picture is reported in more detail in the Senior Chief Inspector's report for 1990–91. I do not think we need to second guess HMI's view with a further review.
As for HMI's own work, the SCI's report covers that too. It makes clear both the strengths and limitations of HMI's current role. Seven thousand establishments were visited but only 150 benefited from written reports about their work as a basis for their own planning. The others yielded valuable

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information which was fed into HMI's database and used in compiling general publications. But they did not receive detailed written feedback.
Those facts about the current system are well known. They demonstrate the need for reform, to which all parties are firmly committed. The only issue is how that reform is to be managed. We have set out our proposals in the Parent's Charter and in this Bill which has had full parliamentary discussion. As regards the question posed by the noble Baroness, Lady White, the Bill was not guillotined in Commons Committee and its use at Report stage doubled the time available for debate from that previously agreed. Once the Bill is law it should be implemented forthwith.
I know Members of the Committee opposite want to press their case for publication of the internal reviews which my right honourable friends commissioned last year. But we made clear from the start that these were internal reviews—not for publication—designed to assist policy making. All parties take advice when deciding policy. They have served their purpose, and the policy we have decided upon is embodied in this Bill which has been and is being fully debated.
I do not think the Labour Party or anyone else would wish to deny the need for confidential advice to Ministers as they formulate policy. It is a necessary part of the business of government. The important thing is to hold the policy itself up to scrutiny as this House is now doing.
I have also been tackled on the lack of a White Paper about our proposals. The policy was set out in the Citizen's Charter, and further fleshed out in the Parent's Charter. I accept that time for formal comment was brief. But the Committee is aware that this must be a short parliamentary session and we needed to make progress to introduce the Bill. Time for debate has however been full. I remind the Committee that we allocated more time than the Opposition chose to use in Committee in another place. Extensive public comment has informed our discussions. So I do not think I need apologise for any lack of public scrutiny of the Bill's proposals.
The noble Baroness made reference to the National Association of Governors and Managers. That association was invited to comment on the Bill, as were all LEAs and other interested bodies in a letter of 2nd October 1991 which invited replies by 15th November. Those bodies did comment and we have been in contact with them.
The noble Earl, Lord Baldwin of Bewdley, set out four points which he said should form the basis or rationale for the changes. He asked whether the position is serious. One of the interesting problems that that goes on to raise is that we simply do not know. We know that there are problems and that standards could be higher. But there is no inspection system which tells us in a way which is common across the education system exactly what is going on in our schools. That must be a starting point.
The noble Earl went on to ask whether the LEAs and HMI are to blame. We have enough evidence to
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know that the LEAs did not have a routinely systematic method of inspection. It was patchy and extremely variable. When it was good, it was very, very good, but, sadly, those instances were all too rare.
The noble Earl asked whether formal inspection is a solution. A formal inspection at least tells us what is going on in our schools. That must be a starting point from which one can target resources and efforts to improve the situation.
The noble Earl also asked why the matter is so urgent. It will be at least five years—taking the implementation of the Bill and a four—year rolling programme—before each school is inspected just once. The sooner we get on with that the better. I argue that all four counts are a reasonable basis for going on with the Bill.
The noble Earl, Lord Baldwin of Bewdley, also said that inspection is extremely negative. He referred to it as a stick and in other derogatory ways. Schools should look upon inspection as being extremely positive rather than negative. Inspection tells us what is going on and then gives us the opportunity of a sound information database needed to build on strength and address weaknesses. That is a positive way to look at inspection. It should not be looked upon as a penal activity.
There is a gross misunderstanding about the Bill and about the need to know what is going on in our schools. The proposals before us will ensure that inspections are regular and systematic. Information will be made available to a much wider audience; that is, parents, the public, schools, governing bodies and, indeed, Parliament. That will be extremely healthy for our schools. It will be a great service for our young people. I hope that the amendments will not be pressed.
Lord Dormand of Easington: Before the noble Baroness sits down will she deal with the questions I posed?
Baroness Blatch: The noble Lord asked the interesting question, where the employees of HMI are to come from. I am sure that later this afternoon he will argue that we do not have enough inspectors and will ask what will happen to those HMIs who will not form part of the core personnel. There will be a large number of people who are well qualified to apply for registration under the registration system. There are many more people in the education world who will feel sufficiently competent to come forward and apply for registration. We are confident that the system will work. The noble Lord clearly does not share our confidence.
Lord Glenamara: We are not objecting to inspections. The whole speech was made on the basis that we object to inspections, which we do not. We object to inspections being made by unqualified laymen. That is what we are objecting to. Will the noble Baroness tell us where the mandate is for introducing that rather fundamental change? Was that part of the Conservative Party manifesto? What is the mandate for it?
Baroness Blatch: Perhaps I may pose the question back to the noble Lord, Lord Glenamara: from where does he get his evidence that unqualified laymen will be involved in inspecting our schools?
Lord Glenamara: Can the noble Baroness tell me where in the Bill the qualifications are laid down?
Baroness Blatch: Happily, we truly believe in the independence of Her Majesty's Chief Inspector and HMI. It will be for Her Majesty's Chief Inspector to lay down the qualifications of those people who will be registered to inspect our schools. We have every confidence in the professionalism of HMI. There is grave suspicion in the minds of noble Lords opposite.
Baroness Phillips: Speaking as an ex-teacher, why do we have to have a Bill? When did we stop being inspected? I have not taught since about 1960. We had inspectors and teachers who gave reports. The Government are acting as if they have suddenly come up with a bright idea. To say that reports are not presented to governors is nonsense. For a long time there has been nothing secret in our schools except in the private sector where inspectors cannot go anyway. Unfortunately, I was not present at Second Reading, but I believe that the Bill is a total nonsense because we shall have unqualified people going into schools and making comments. When I was teaching, one thing that I resented was being inspected by somebody who had never done the job that I was trying to do. I would always ask, "Where did you teach?" That will be a relevant question for the kind of people who will now visit schools. I believe it is a slur on the profession that we have to introduce a Bill to get inspectors and HMIs to do a job which is already being done.
Lord Renfrew of Kaimsthorn: Before the noble Baroness sits down, will she confirm that it is anticipated that there will be 6,000 inspections a year, the reports of which will be published and available generally? The noble Baroness has said that at present there are only about 150 full inspections per year. It is perfectly reasonable to ask who will undertake those inspections. They will be undertaken by registered inspectors who will be well qualified. The same question would arise if they were undertaken by the inspectorate. There will be a significant increase in the number of inspections, and they will be published. I hope that the noble Baroness will confirm those figures.
Baroness Phillips: As the noble Lord has put that question, perhaps I may ask why we have got down to such a small number of inspections. In my view it is due to the Government. Just as they have cut back on the health service, so they have cut back in education, and in the end nobody knows what they are doing. We would have a much better system of education if we left it to the practitioners who know what they are doing. I would quote the words of a friend of mine, a headmaster. He said that if we changed the system often enough the working class would remain illiterate. I sometimes think that there is truth in that old story. In the old days one had regular inspections. One also had fire drills, safety drills and prayers which
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one does not have today. That does not mean the inspectors are not there to do their job. Teachers and head teachers have nothing to hide. If they wanted to put this in the paper—which is presumably what the noble Lord meant—they would do it.
Baroness Blatch: Perhaps I may say in reply to the noble Baroness, first, that the inspections were not as regular as the noble Baroness's memory serves her. Secondly, we have not cut back on HMI. What has broken down is the system. Inspections were carried out between HMI (who did all too few inspections) and the LEAs. I have given enough evidence to show that the LEAs have not had a consistent approach to inspections. To take the example given by the noble Lord, Lord Ritchie of Dundee, some authorities have done an exemplary job but others have done no inspections at all. It was this Government, not any other, that made HMI inspections public. What we are doing now is to combine the skills and professionalism of HMI under a chief inspector who will use a qualified registration system of practitioners, all of whom will be qualified under the system laid down by the chief inspector. We will guarantee a rolling programme of approximately 6,000 inspections every year against common criteria.
Indeed, my final point relates to common criteria. All too often schools were inspected by inspectors and it was not known by what criteria they were being judged. Very often subjectivity crept into the reports and good schools and teachers were at a loss to know how judgments were made. Under this system the criteria will be in the public domain, reports will be constant against a common format and parents, teachers, governors and children will be much better informed of what is going on and being achieved in our schools.
3.45 p.m.
Baroness David: I do not know whether the noble Lord, Lord Renfrew, was aware that during the last year for which HMIs reported (1989–90) inspection visits were made to 3,274 maintained primary schools, 2,436 maintained secondary schools, 529 independent schools and 692 further and higher education institutions. Perhaps those visits are of more value than a regular four-yearly inspection by people who will not have the qualifications of HMIs.
Lord Renfrew of Kaimsthorn: The visiting system is valuable and one hopes that it will continue. But I would ask the noble Baroness in reply how many of the inspections to which she made reference were published.
Baroness David: I believe they were made known to the governors of the schools concerned.
Lord Elton: Are we not comparing apples and oranges? The inspections to which the noble Baroness has referred are partial or specialist inspections and the inspections referred to by my noble friend are full inspections, which are entirely different and much more important.
Viscount Eccles: I was sorry that I was out of the country at the time of Second Reading, but I need not have been sorry at all because we are having a Second Reading debate now. When the Chamber has decided on the principle of the Bill we ought to get on with the Committee stage. There have not been inspections on any scale for a very long time. It was 45 years ago when I was the Minister and had the pleasure of knowing the HMI. They were very nice people but they did not often inspect. When they did inspect nobody ever read their reports, but they visited and advised very well—exactly what I believe the noble Baroness, Lady David, said at Second Reading. That is something that they must go on doing.
However, there is a totally new situation, which I suppose is the reason we have this Bill. Parents and employers now want to know what is happening in the schools. In order to tell them what is happening we are trying to mount something like 6,000 full inspections a year. That will not be at all easy. It will not be possible for a very long time, and I am doubtful how valuable it will be when it is done. Still, we have to try, and the Bill tells us how it will be attempted. In my view, to have a report on the whole system before we get on with the Committee stage is, in parliamentary terms, wrong.
Baroness Faithfull: I am the governor of two schools. I am bound to say that one has not been inspected for 15 years and the other has not been inspected for 12 years and received an inspection only when the governors asked for it.
Lord Shepherd: The noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, reproved the Committee, with some justification. He then indulged in a Second Reading speech. I intervene with great temerity to draw the Committee's attention to the amendment before us. It is not a wide-ranging issue. It is a simple question as to whether there should be a comprehensive review of the arrangements for the inspection of schools in England and Wales before an order is laid before your Lordships' Chamber and another place.
The noble Baroness, Lady Blatch, speaks as always not only with charm but with considerable confidence. I remember she spoke the other day in response to a question with supreme confidence about the council tax and that we were able to save money in terms of valuations using private sector valuers for that purpose. I see in today's paper that some 60 per cent. of the valuations so far submitted have been rejected because they are considered to be completely inadequate by the authorities.
I do not use that example. I simply say to the Committee that one must take all Ministers' speeches, from whichever party they arise, with a pinch of salt. They have their brief and will speak to it. I agree with my noble friend Lord Glenamara and support an extension and improvement of the inspection of our schools if that is the way to achieve a higher standard and quality of output. My anxiety is that we are now entering a new field of inspection, some areas of which are completely and utterly unknown.
The noble Baroness said that we are dealing with the Bill in a tight parliamentary timetable. I am sure
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that not only on this Bill but on other Bills with which we have to deal the Government will be asking the Chamber to move with a degree of expedition. It is right that Parliament in that position should do so. Equally, it follows that if one is seeking expedition, one needs to take into account that matters may not be as fully scrutinised as perhaps they otherwise would be with more leisurely proceedings.
I make only one suggestion with regard to Amendment No. 1 and I do not know whether the noble Baroness on the Front Bench will agree. I suggest the removal of the word, "comprehensive". It may be thought that that suggestion would abnormally delay the proceedings. But the Chamber is surely not asking too much by saying that the Government should produce a report to the two Houses of Parliament prior to making the orders which implement the legislation that we are approving in broad principle and design. As we know in this Chamber, an order is not subject to any form of amendment; it must be taken as a whole or rejected, and in most cases it is not rejected. I would not have thought that that was asking too much of the Government in the present situation.
Baroness Young: The noble Lord is perhaps being less than fair to my noble friend the Minister who is responding to the debate. When my noble friend rose to speak earlier she answered quite specifically the points raised, and I believe did so fairly.
Most people taking part in the debate have had some experience with education, some of us regrettably perhaps longer ago than we might have wished. Nevertheless, it is a subject which we regard as important and we try to follow events as they unfold. It is important that the underlying case for the Bill, which in a sense is complementary to the education Act in 1988, should be understood.
Nobody is abolishing the inspectorate. The chief inspectors will remain; a number of other inspectors will remain and a number of other people will have to be registered. We are not asking just any old person who cares to put up his or her hand and to say, "I should like to be a school inspector", to come along and do so. They will need to be chosen and selected carefully and trained properly. Having been trained, they will go into schools. Schools now have to publish their aims—which is a good thing—so that inspectors can see how far what they are doing correlates with what they intended to do. That is a valuable practice.
I too have been approached by heads of schools and former HMIs who believe that some kind of outside inspection, with a proper amount of educational input, will be invaluable for schools in the future and helpful to schools, governors, parents, employers and others.
Baroness Blackstone: We have come to expect a robust response from the noble Baroness, Lady Blatch, to amendments in Committee. She was extremely robust in her response just now. But I must say that she both misrepresented the position of the Labour Party and misled the Committee on one or two other points. I am sure that she will forgive me if I draw them to her attention.

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However, before doing so I should like to refer to what my noble friend Lord Shepherd said. He is absolutely right. These amendments are perfectly appropriate for the first day of Committee on a major Bill. There is no sense in which this debate has anything to do with having another Second Reading of the Bill. The point is that the Government have undertaken a secret review of inspecting schools; a report has been prepared; it has been extensively leaked in a newspaper, and yet we are not allowed to see it before the Bill is enacted.
The amendments suggest that that review on this important matter, comprehensive or not—or indeed another review if the Government prefer if they are ashamed of what the first review says in some way—should be laid before Parliament. As the noble Earl, Lord Baldwin, said, it is far better on an issue of such importance to get things right than to rush into things without there being adequate consideration and public discussion.
I want to assert yet again that I have no wish to temporise. That is the last thing that is appropriate when making policy. If we want to improve our systems of schooling in this country—and we all agree that we do—we must get on and do it. But we must do it in a way that is sensible and try to build some consensus about what is sensible. I regret to say that there is no consensus on the Bill. If we had a chance to see the review we would perhaps see the arguments made by those advising Ministers.
In no way do I or any of my colleagues on these Benches object to confidential advice being give to Ministers. Of course that must be possible. But after such advice has been given and when Ministers have decided what they wish to do, it is normal on a major issue of this sort, on something which is not in any way subject to national security, to consult those who will be most directly affected. That has not happened in this case.
The noble Baroness said that LEAs were consulted in a letter sent out in October. She said also that the National Association of Governors and Managers was consulted in the same letter. I have seen a copy of that letter. It is addressed to LEAs. The National Association of Governors and Managers is not listed among those to whom it was addressed. Moreover, the National Association of Governors and Managers assured me not once but on several occasions that it was not consulted. Will the Minister confirm that, although there was some consultation as regards the Parent's Charter, this Bill was published before that consultation period came to an end? If that is the case we cannot say that there was even genuine consultation on the Parent's Charter aspect of the Bill.
Baroness Blatch: The issue concerning the Parent's Charter was that there should be a systematic and regular method of inspection. There is a Bill before Parliament and it was certainly in print.
Baroness Blackstone: Had it been published?
4 p.m.
Baroness Blatch: I did say that the Bill was in print. We must not become pedantic about words. I said that the Bill was in print, which means that it was available. It has been considered in another place with no time limit. The Bill was not guillotined until the very last night and even then twice the amount of time that had previously been agreed had been allotted. Every opportunity was given in the other place. We believe that there has been enough analysis both in the public domain and as advice to my right honourable friend. We believe that this is a measure which has wide support and this is our opportunity. I absolutely agree with the noble Baroness that it is right that we should be discussing the amendment on the Marshalled List. However, we believe that we should not time-waste with any more reviews. Enough is known to show that there is a need for regular and consistent inspection of all our schools and not just of some of them. For that reason we intend to press ahead with this provision.
Baroness Blackstone: I am grateful to the noble Baroness for confirming that this Bill was published before the consultation period on the Parent's Charter had even been completed. That is a disgraceful way of operating in government.
I wish to return to one or two of the other issues which have been raised. The noble Baroness claimed that the Labour Party would be perfectly happy to introduce legislation of this kind without first publishing a review. She then made reference to our proposals for an education standards council, suggesting that we have said in that document that we shall do this and that. Perhaps I may remind the Minister that we have consulted extensively on that document. We have given an opportunity for local authorities, educational experts, inspectors, local authorities, parents, governors and managers to comment on those proposals, unlike the proposals contained in this Bill.
The proposals in that document will be in our manifesto. When the country goes to the polls the public will be able to judge whether it believes that the proposals are desirable or not. There were no proposals in the 1987 manifesto of this Government as regards the kind of things that this Bill intends to do. There was not a single mention or a signal. Perhaps I may take up something which the noble Baroness, Lady Young, said. She suggested that this Bill is complementary to the 1988 Act. In the many days of debate that we had during its passage through this House of the Education Reform Bill 1988 I do not remember any suggestion that we were going dramatically to change the system of inspecting our schools along the lines proposed in this Bill.
The Minister has also said that the audit review criticised some aspects of local authority inspection. It did and we accepted those criticisms, which is why we believe that there is a need for change. However, there is nothing in the audit review suggesting the ludicrous proposals which are in the Bill before us. To suggest that that justifies not consulting or undertaking any kind of preliminary review which is then made public is untenable. I read in today's Guardian that the Prime

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Minister has come round to believing in freedom of information. I do not know whether that is a rumour or whether he really has performed a complete volte-face. If he has, and he is intending to introduce freedom of information, perhaps the first thing he might consider is publishing the review upon which we are told these proposals are based.
Perhaps I may say a brief word to the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles. He is someone with enormous experience of education. Perhaps I may quote to him something he said in 1959. He said:
"My Department has the unique advantage of the countrywide experience of Her Majesty's Inspectors. Nowhere in the Kingdom is there such a rich source of information or such a constant exchange of ideas on all that goes on in our schools".
Does the noble Viscount deny that he said that in 1959? I was also interested in that he conceded something which no one else on the Government Front Bench has conceded; namely, that it will take a very long time under this system to get 6,000 inspections taking place in our schools. The Government are claiming that we shall have 6,000 inspections straight away. However, I must agree with the noble Viscount on this matter: it will be very difficult to implement the proposals that we have before us. We shall see many schools not getting an inspection every four years. I had not intended to divide the Committee on this pair of amendments, but, having heard some of the things which have been said and the completely inadequate reply given by the noble Baroness, I have no option but to divide the Committee.
Baroness Blatch: I shall not do anything to detract from the noble Baroness pressing for the opinion of the Committee, but perhaps I may put two matters to her. This Government's record for putting information to parents, governors and teachers is unequalled by any other previous government. I should like to pose a question to the noble Baroness. She said that we know all the details of the proposals which will be alternative to those which we have before the Committee. Will the equivalent of the chief inspector be accountable to the Secretary of State for what is going on in our schools or will the quango which will be equivalent to the chief inspector be accountable? Will it be the quango which gives information and which will be the adviser and the information channel to the Secretary of State? Alternatively, will it be the equivalent of the HMI? Whatever the answer, it will be a very interesting one for the purposes of working out the status of HMI and its independence or the status of the quango and its opportunity to put a subjective judgment on the information coming from the HMI.
Baroness Blackstone: I can give a very simple reply. The inspectorate will be fully independent under the proposals that the Labour Party is putting forward and which will be put before the electorate.
Lord Glenamara: The House will have an opportunity to debate our proposals during the next
28
few months when our Bill comes up for Second Reading and when a Bill comes forward which will repeal the Bill now under discussion.
4.7 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said amendment (No. 1) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 95; Not-Contents, 127.

Division No. 1

CONTENTS

Acton, L.

Jeger, B.

Addington, L.

Jenkins of Hillhead, L.

Airedale, L.

Jenkins of Putney, L.

Annan, L.

John-Mackie, L.

Ardwick, L.

Kennet, L.

Aylestone, L.

Kirkwood, L.

Baldwin of Bewdley, E.

Kissin, L.

Beaumont of Whitley, L.

Lovell-Davis, L.

Beloff, L.

McFarlane of Llandaff, B.

Birk, B.

McIntosh of Haringey, L.

Blackstone, B.

McNair, L.

Bonham-Carter, L.

Manchester, Bp.

Boston of Faversham, L.

Milner of Leeds, L.

Bottomley, L.

Molloy, L.

Callaghan of Cardiff, L.

Morris of Castle Morris, L.

Carmichael of Kelvingrove, L.

Murray of Epping Forest, L.

Cledwyn of Penrhos, L.

Nicol, B.

Crook, L.

Ogmore, L.

David, B.

Peston, L.

Desai, L.

Phillips, B.

Donaldson of Kingsbridge, L.

Pitt of Hampstead, L.

Donoughue, L.

Prys-Davies, L.

Dormand of Easington, L.

Richard, L.

Ennals, L.

Ritchie of Dundee, L. [Teller.]

Ezra, L.

Robson of Kiddington, B.

Falkender, B.

Rochester, L.

Falkland, V.

Ross of Newport, L.

Fisher of Rednal, B.

Sainsbury, L.

Fitt, L.

Seear, B.

Foot, L.

Serota, B.

Galpern, L.

Shackleton, L.

Gladwyn, L.

Shannon, E.

Glenamara, L.

Shaughnessy, L.

Graham of Edmonton, L. [Teller.]

Shepherd, L.

Stallard, L.

Greene of Harrow Weald, L.

Stedman, B.

Hampden, V.

Stoddart of Swindon, L.

Hampton, L.

Strabolgi, L.

Hamwee, B.

Taylor of Blackburn, L.

Hanworth, V.

Thurlow, L.

Harris of Greenwich, L.

Tordoff, L.

Hayter, L.

Underhill, L.

Hilton of Eggardon, B.

Wallace of Coslany, L.

Hollis of Heigham, B.

Warnock, B.

Holme of Cheltenham, L.

Wharton, B.

Howie of Troon, L.

White, B.

Hughes, L.

Williams of Elvel, L.

Jay, L.

Wilson of Rievaulx, L.

NOT-CONTENTS

Aldington, L.

Brigstocke, B.

Alexander of Tunis, E.

Brougham and Vaux, L.

Alport, L.

Butterworth, L.

Astor, V.

Caithness, E.

Auckland, L.

Campbell of Alloway, L.

Balfour, E.

Carnegy of Lour, B.

Barber, L.

Carnock, L.

Belhaven and Stenton, L.

Cavendish of Furness, L.

Bellwin, L.

Cockfield, L.

Bessborough, E.

Crathorne, L.

Birdwood, L.

Cullen of Ashbourne, L.

Blatch, B.

Dacre of Glanton, L.

Blyth, L.

De Freyne, L.

Borthwick, L.

Denham, L.

Boyd-Carpenter, L.

Denton of Wakefield, B.

Brabazon of Tara, L.

Eccles, V.

29

Eccles of Moulton, B.

Mowbray and Stourton, L.

Elles, B.

Moyne, L.

Elliot of Harwood, B.

Munster, E.

Elliott of Morpeth, L.

Nelson, E.

Elton, L.

Northbourne, L.

Erroll of Hale, L.

Onslow, E.

Faithfull, B.

Oxfuird, V.

Ferrers, E.

Palmer, L.

Fortescue, E.

Park of Monmouth, B.

Gainford, L.

Pearson of Rannoch, L.

Gardner of Parkes, B.

Pender, L.

Geddes, L.

Perry of Southwark, B.

Gisborough, L.

Peyton of Yeovil, L.

Goschen, V.

Prentice, L.

Gray of Contin, L.

Quinton, L.

Gridley, L.

Rankeillour, L.

Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, L.

Renfrew of Kaimsthorn, L.

Rennell, L.

Hardinge of Penshurst, L.

Richardson, L.

Havers, L.

Rippon of Hexham, L.

Henley, L.

St. Davids, V.

Hesketh, L. [Teller.]

Saltoun of Abernethy, Ly.

HolmPatrick, L.

Sanderson of Bowden, L.

Hood, V.

Savile, L.

Hooper, B.

Seccombe, B.

Howe, E.

Selkirk, E.

Hylton-Foster, B.

Skelmersdale, L.

Iddesleigh, E.

Skidelsky of Tilton, L.

Jellicoe, E.

Slim, V.

Jenkin of Roding, L.

Strange, B.

Johnston of Rockport, L.

Strathclyde, L.

Joseph, L.

Strathcona and Mount Royal, L.

Killearn, L.

Kimball, L.

Strathmore and Kinghorne, E. [Teller]

Knollys, V.

Lauderdale, E.

Sudeley, L.

Long, V.

Terrington, L.

Lyell, L.

Teviot, L.

McAlpine of West Green, L.

Thomas of Gwydir, L.

Mackay of Clashfern, L.

Trefgarne, L.

Macleod of Borve, B.

Trumpington, B.

Mancroft, L.

Ullswater, V.

Marlesford, L.

Vaux of Harrowden, L.

Marsh, L.

Waddington, L.

Merrivale, L.

Walton of Detchant, L.

Mersey, V.

Windlesham, L.

Monk Bretton, L.

Wise, L.

Montgomery of Alamein, V.

Wolfson, L.

Morris, L.

Young, B.

Mountevans, L.

Resolved in the negative, and amendment disagreed to accordingly.
4.15 p.m.
Baroness Blackstone Baroness Blackstone moved Amendment No. 2:
Page 1, line 6, after ("the") insert ("independent").
The noble Baroness said: In moving this amendment, I shall speak at the same time to Amendments Nos. 7, 48 and 73. Her Majesty's Chief Inspectors, both for England and Wales, must be independent. I believe that the Government accept that and that they are anxious to secure that independence. If that is so, the Government will have little difficulty in accepting Amendments Nos. 2 and 48. Amendments Nos. 7 and 73 raise the major issue of directions by the Secretary of State.
Clause 2(5) requires the chief inspectors to,
"have regard to such aspects of government policy as the Secretary of State may direct".
Such a direction, regrettably, could prevent Her Majesty's Chief Inspectors from providing the Government with independent advice. It is therefore in conflict with the Government's apparent wish to
30
promote the inspectorate's independence. The inclusion of reference to government policy is, as I said at Second Reading, unprecedented in legislation in this country for the very good reason that government policy is not a legal concept and therefore sits uncomfortably in a proposed Act of Parliament. We are back on the same territory that we debated in the Further and Higher Education Bill, where the Government were trying to give the Secretary of State powers to direct the universities. In this Bill, they are at it again, playing the same game, now trying to give the Secretary of State powers which could constrain the chief inspectors.
Let me elaborate a little further, starting with Amendment No. 2 and the identical amendment applied to Wales, Amendment No. 7. The preservation of the inspectorate's independence is vital. The inspectorate must be perceived as independent by the teaching profession, by parents and by the public at large if it is to maintain its credibility. By putting the word "independent" on to the face of the Bill, there will be clearly established, in statutes, the independence of Her Majesty's Inspectorate. It would help to make it clear that the Government have no intention of being partisan, and it would reinforce the commitments the Government have already made about the chief inspectors' independence. The Minister will no doubt repeat that this afternoon when he replies.
Amendments Nos. 48 and 75 delete Clause 2(5), which gives the Secretary of State power to direct Her Majesty's Chief Inspectors to have regard to such aspects of government policy that the Secretary of State may choose to emphasise. Everyone will be aware that there has been a great deal of anxiety about Clause 2(5) among outside commentators, among existing and retired inspectors and among Government Back-Benchers in another place. I am sure that many Members of this House will share those anxieties. If the clause is left in the Bill, the chief inspectors will have nothing like the independence which the Government claim they will have. That means that if they start exercising their independence in a way that the Government dislike, the Secretary of State can start directing them by reference to government policy, which is a vague concept which can be construed in any way that some future Secretary of State might determine. An irresponsible Secretary of State—and I am in no way suggesting that the present Secretary of State is irresponsible—following some whim or other, could quite easily claim that a whim is government policy because he had decided that it should be government policy. After all, Secretaries of State are policy makers.
When the Minister comes to reply, I hope that she will not defend the inclusion of this dangerous and unnecessary clause by saying that it is simply a matter of directing Her Majesty's chief inspectors' attention to specific government policies, as was said by the Minister of State in Committee in another place. Surely anyone appointed to these important posts would be well aware of government policy. They would have access to a huge amount of information about what constituted government policy. They

31
could read government reports and they could read Ministers' speeches in draft as well as after they were made. They would have access to Hansard and newspapers and they would be in regular touch with senior officials as well as with Ministers themselves. Unless the Government wish to exert unacceptable control over the chief inspectors, thereby jeopardising their independence, the subsection is otiose.
Nor will Members of the Committee be reassured that the power would rarely be used and that it is merely a failsafe power of last resort, as we heard when similar attempts were made in the Further and Higher Education Bill to give the Secretary of State powers of direction. If the Government really want independent inspectors they will drop Clause 2(5) and accept the other amendments in this group. If the Secretary of State wishes to be accountable for the work of Her Majesty's Inspectorate, that should clearly be written into the Bill by making the appropriate powers over the work of the inspectorate through statutory instruments that can be debated in Parliament. As it stands, this power allows backdoor and covert manipulation of Her Majesty's Inspectorate. I beg to move.
Lord Beloff: After the rather long debate on the first amendment perhaps we can have a very abbreviated debate on this one because it seems to me that it simply echoes what the noble Baroness, Lady Blatch, said in reply to various interventions during the first debate. She claimed then that we had to rely for the new system on the independence of the new chief inspectors. Whenever we asked how those people were to be appointed and trained and what would be their qualifications we were told to trust the independent chief inspectors. I cannot believe that a few minutes after saying that the Minister will repudiate her own words and not accept the amendment.
Lord Ritchie of Dundee: We still do not like Clause 2(5). In particular, we do not like the words,
"such aspects of government policy as the Secretary of State may direct".
HMI has traditionally had regard to government policy. I know that on occasions the frankness of its reports has been an embarrassment to the Government. For example, HMI has criticised the dilapidated state of our schools over the past few years, the shortage of books and equipment and the fact that sections of society in certain parts of the country have fallen far short of the achievement they should have reached. That is really a social problem. On the other hand, the HMI review of July 1991 said that the inspectorate had contributed significantly on policy matters, that it had advised on 80 applications for schools to opt out, that it was largely responsible for the revision of the maths and science syllabuses for the national curriculum and that it had advised on truancy. In other words, it has supported government policy in numerous ways as well as being critical of it.
I support the inclusion of the word "independent" and I think that the clause has an unfortunate resonance, particularly with the words,
"such aspects of government policy as the Secretary of State may direct".
32
I support the amendment.
Baroness Perry of Southwark: We are all agreed that the independence of the inspectorate and the independence of Her Majesty's chief inspectors are matters of paramount importance, but I think we are also agreed that the ability of the inspectorate to influence policy and to ensure that policy is based on real evidence of what is happening in schools and colleges is of equal importance. One of the unique features of the British education system has been the input of HMI practical experience and knowledge of what is happening on the ground into the making of government policy. It seems to me that the two subsections (5) which the amendments address simply ensure that that can continue.
As the Committee will know, I had intimate experience of the inspectorate from the 1970s until the mid-1980s. Under the various governments who had control during that period it was always the custom of the Secretary of State to make clear to the inspectorate the particular concerns in his or her mind at that time to ensure that the balance of inspection reflected those concerns and that that important direct practical evidence of what was going on was fed back into policy. I suggest that the careful wording of the subsections (5) in the two clauses makes it clear that that practice is intended to continue in a proper way and that the advice of the inspectorate and the work that it does will still be directed towards aspects of government policy. It would be extremely unfortunate if that were to be lost. I therefore wholeheartedly support the way the clauses are written and I wish to reject the amendment.
Earl Baldwin of Bewdley: Nevertheless, it could be used as a muzzle. If all that has been said is so, I do not see why it should be in the Bill at all. It could be used as a muzzle. If the Secretary of State decided to direct that the chief inspector should have regard, for example, to the Government's financial policies, the inspector would see himself barred from giving an educational judgment that the restriction on, say, capital spending was producing an unfortunate balance in that dilapidated classrooms were affecting the quality of teaching and staff morale. That is perfectly possible. It is a dangerous clause and I see no reason for it to be in the Bill
Lord Elton: I think that the noble Earl, Lord Baldwin of Bewdley, would be much more alarmed if the Secretary of State could tell the chief inspector to disregard certain things. Having to have regard is a perfectly proper consideration. I ask Members of the Committee opposite to put themselves in the position—the unlikely position—of a Secretary of State for Education in a future Labour Government. That government might have a distinct policy on equal opportunities in terms of black/white relations but the Secretary of State would not be in a position to direct the inspectorate to have regard to that policy in carrying out its inspections.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: Amendment No. 2 would set a rather curious precedent for legislation. Your Lordships' House deals with many measures under

33
which appointments are made. One does not normally spell out separately that those appointed are the "independent" so and so. There is, so far as I can recall, no use of the word "independent" when a judge is appointed. It is assumed that he is independent. Therefore if one puts into the Bill the word "independent" all kinds of questions on other legislation could be raised. It is therefore not only unnecessary but dangerous.
Lord Peston: I wish to make one or two comments on this matter. When the Minister replied to the Second Reading debate she said at least one thing which I did not know. I was most indebted to her for that. She said that the independence of Her Majesty's Inspectorate had no legal foundation. I am quoting from memory, but she said that the present HMI position had precedent but no legal foundation. She said that it was by custom and that it had evolved since 1839. I did not know that. I then read the definitive article on the subject. It is entitled Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Schools, 1839–1989: the Question of Independence and appears in the Journal of Educational Administration and History. It is written by Messrs Goodings and Dunford and I take it that it is the locus classicus on this subject. It is certainly an extraordinarily interesting article and makes that point and a number of others.
The inspectorate appears to be independent by custom. When we say that it does not have a legal foundation that does not mean that the inspectorate is not independent; on the contrary. I entirely accept the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter. So far as I know—and I am not an expert on such matters—there are no statements in law which say that Her Majesty's judges must be independent; it is taken for granted. I do not know that for a fact, but I am willing to accept that what the noble Lord said is right.
On the other hand, I should be a little taken aback if I were to read a statement in any document which dealt with the way that judges deal with the law and which said that, in exercising their functions, the judges of this country,
"shall have regard to such aspects of government policy as the Secretary of State may direct".
That would be as appalling an interference with our legal system as anything that anyone could dream up. The whole point about the issue is not to say that the inspectors should not "have regard" to such matters—indeed, I would regard that as monstrous with respect to this or any other government—the objection is that it is set out in the Bill, precisely in the sense indicated by the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, in the point that he made. One is not saying that they should take no regard of policy; in fact, I would regard it as ridiculous if they did not do so. But I would go further, and probably further than the Minister: I do not believe that the inspectorate should contradict in public the stated policy of the Government.
However, there is a fine line in this connection that is referred to in the article which I mentioned between expressing warnings—such as, "Do you know where you are heading? Is it where you want to go?" I regard that as being the role of the inspector. The Secretary
34
of State can then say, "Yes, I do want to do something stupid, if you push me." There is a distinction between uttering warnings and contradicting the Government. I do not think that should happen. With respect to independence, I believe that we can go one of two ways. It is the point of the amendment; and I am surprised that the noble Baroness, Lady Perry, does not agree with it. We can accept the argument of my noble friend and actually write the word "independent" into the Bill. I think that that, in many ways, would be the sensible way forward. Alternatively, although Amendments Nos. 48 and 73 have not been tabled as alternatives, we can delete this rather dreadful subsection (5) on Page 2 of the Bill.
In a way, if subsection (5) was not in the Bill I would be less worried—as indeed would my noble friend—with the appearance of the word "independent" in the legislation. We would then have the custom as we have it now. Perhaps I may put the argument simply to the noble Baroness. The Government should not be surprised at the anxiety as regards a subsection like subsection (5). There has been no suggestion that Ministers—I can see at least two former education secretaries in the Chamber, one of whom I was very close to at one time—have worried about that particular matter in the past; indeed, that has not been what has worried them. That is why I, and almost all the professionals, feel rather strongly about subsection (5). It causes one to smell a rat. What is it about?
It is possible that the noble Baroness will become shirty with me and say that it is yet another of my rhetorical questions. But what is it that has bothered the Secretary of State that requires him to put that requirement in the legislation? I cannot think of anything. I have had a little experience in such matters. Therefore, in a sense, the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, has made my speech for me. With respect to independence, I am happy for the status quo to remain. But, in that case, I do want subsection (5) to remain in the Bill.
4.30 p.m.
Baroness Phillips: The intervention of the noble Baroness has made me even more worried about inserting the word "independent" in the Bill. It shocked me to know that inspectors went into the schools or colleges and carried out their tasks, with reference to what governments had told them to do. Surely they went to look at the standard of education; that is, the whole standard of the college or school which they visited. I find that fact totally surprising and shocking. Whatever government is in power, it is the duty of the inspector to look at a totally different set of facts.
I have a question for certain Members of the Committee opposite, two of whom are missing. Where is the rule about not taking part in Committee stage? If you make a slightly longer speech—I have never made a long speech at any time since I have been a Member of this Chamber—why are you then accused of making a Second Reading speech? If the Committee stage was conducted upstairs, we would argue across the table; that is what committees are

35
about. Why should we let all this legislation go through just to suit the Government? We are looking seriously at the issues involved.
It was not my intention to intervene until I heard the speech of the noble Baroness. I find it very disturbing that HMIs visited different schools and colleges, in some of which I have taught, guided by government principles. That is why we have the marvellous phrase in the Bill as to whether or not the finances are being properly spent. What does that mean? Will the HMIs inspect the lavatories and then say there should be more outside lavatories because they are cheaper than inside lavatories? Surely the duty of the inspector is to be independent.
Many members of my family have been distinguished members of the Civil Service. The one thing that they have always been proud of is their independence; indeed, they never even revealed their political beliefs to anyone. That is what an inspector should be. He should be totally independent of the government who appointed him. That is what the Bill appears to contravene.
The Lord Bishop of Guildford: In her reply, I wonder whether the Minister can give an assurance on the matter. I, too, have some anxiety. It does not concern the first amendment, which seeks to insert the word "independent" in the Bill; it concerns Clause 2(5). As presently drafted, the subsection refers to the Chief Inspector for England "exercising his functions". That presumably means all the functions of the Chief Inspector for England and would, I suppose, also mean that when giving guidance to inspectors he will, for example, be able to particularise certain "aspects of Government policy". That causes some of us to be anxious. All the way through our concern has been to preserve what the present HMI has achieved; namely, the fearless independence which we greatly admire and respect and which was one of the bulwarks—to put it dangerously in this company—against the professionalism of the educators. I fear that people will refer back to me on that remark. But we need protection in some measure against those educationists.
I do not believe that the subsection is necessary. I say that because if the Secretary of State wishes to draw attention to Government policy, he will do so whether or not the subsection is included in the Bill. It causes us anxiety that the inspectorate will not be as independent as the noble Baroness assured us it would be when she replied to the last debate. Therefore, I shall be most grateful if she will clarify what the clause means and why it is necessary.
Baroness Blatch: Perhaps I may deal first with the question just put by the right reverend Prelate. At the end of the debate, it will be interesting to measure the degree of independence which we believe in on this side of the Chamber. If one looks at the amendments on the Marshalled List, one can see just how much Members of the Committee opposite believe in independence. Many amendments tabled today are wholly in conflict and wholly inconsistent with the amendment now before the Committee which asks for
36
the word "independent" to be put on the face of the Bill. I say that because following amendments would fetter that independence.
I can give Members of the Committee the absolute assurance that what we are talking about here is setting up Her Majesty's Chief Inspector who will have the power to introduce without parliamentary interference—and there is a later amendment which seeks to impose parliamentary interference—a registration scheme determining the qualifications required for someone to be registered as a competent inspector to inspect schools. We shall have a chief inspector who will have the power to determine the criteria against which schools will be inspected and we shall have a chief inspector who will inform the Secretary of State on HMI's findings as regards what is found in schools which, again, will be measured against the criteria determined by the inspectorate. In addition, the chief inspector will be empowered to provide unsolicited information to the Secretary of State. That could take on board the anxieties expressed by the noble Earl, Lord Baldwin of Bewdley, and the noble Lord, Lord Peston.
One of the things that chief inspectors will be free to do, for example, is to take account of the state of buildings, or the lack of resources, if that is what they believe is what is having a material impact on the delivery of education in our schools. If it is material evidence, they will not have to be asked for it; they will be free to give it. The information will be in the public domain. I do not think that I can spell out the word "independence" in the way that we mean independence. So long as what chief inspectors are doing is within the remit that is on the face of the Bill, they will be able to continue.
My noble friend Lord Elton hit the spot when he defended the wording in Clause 2(5). From time to time any Secretary of State of any party may wish to know how a particular policy is impacting on the schools. It may be science in the curriculum, race relations in our schools—or anything. A Secretary of State must be free to say, "In doing your job as set out in the legislation, and with all your independence, have regard to particular aspects of policy as that impacts on education". I believe that that is what Members of the Committee opposite would do.
I agree with my noble friend—I believe that it was my noble friend Lord Boyd-Carpenter—who said that there would be more worry about a Secretary of State listing matters to which the inspectors must not have regard, as opposed to that to which they must have regard.
I understand that Amendments Nos. 2 and 7 are largely paving amendments to Amendments Nos. 48 and 73. However, I should perhaps explain that a statutory office is by nature independent in the general sense, but independence is guaranteed not by the use of the word but by the detailed provisions on the face of the Bill. Noble Lords will see that my right honourable friends have been careful in establishing the powers and duties of the chief inspectors in Clauses 2 and 4 of the Bill to strike an appropriate balance to ensure the chief inspectors have the

37
necessary independence for the exercise of their functions while having proper regard to the overall context in which they must work.
Turning now to Amendments Nos. 48 and 73, I believe that these amendments are based on a fundamental misunderstanding of what Clause 2(5) and Clause 6(5) are intended to achieve —and, indeed, do achieve in law. I have heard concern on all sides about this, so I will explain as fully as possible.
The power of direction of HMCI in these clauses is not an unlimited one: it is in fact extremely limited. It merely allows the Secretary of State to draw to the attention of HMCI aspects of government policy which are relevant to HMCI's functions, and ensures that HMCI takes these into account in exercising his functions. The clauses do not allow the Secretary of State to tell HMCI what he can or cannot do, nor do they restrict what he may or may not say. I believe that that was the understanding of the noble Baroness, Lady Phillips, who said that the Secretary of State can tell HMCI what to do. He does not have that power under the Bill, and nor do we have any desire to give him that power. But if the Secretary of State has asked HMCI for advice on a particular matter, it would surely be sensible for him also to draw HMCI's attention to any relevant government policy and to ask him to take it into account, so that the advice tendered is as useful as possible.
There is absolutely no intention here to circumscribe HMCI's independence. Indeed, the clause is a reflection of the greater independence being given to HMCI. It establishes a new relationship between HMI and the Secretary of State.
At present, HMI are all servants of the Secretary of State—he has unlimited power to direct them in any way he wishes. But as the Committee well knows, successive Secretaries of State have made it their policy to allow considerable freedom and independence to HMI—a point that was revisited by the noble Lord, Lord Peston. It is quite absurd to suggest that we would couple our decision to give this freedom a statutory basis with a power of direction which could be used to tie HMI's hands.
The noble Lord, Lord Peston, sought on Second Reading to suggest that either the duty to "have regard" meant nothing —in which case we could do without this subsection—or it meant that HMI were effectively under the Secretary of State's control. That was a very misleading parody of the truth. The true position is at neither of those imaginary extremes. "Having regard" to a matter or policy is a well-recognised legal concept. It will require the HMCI to consider the policy drawn to his attention and act in knowledge of its existence. He cannot simply ignore the policy out of hand—he must give it due consideration. But having had such "regard" to the policy he can act or speak exactly as he sees fit—his freedom is not curtailed in any way.
There are many precedents for the power to make directions in statute. We could easily have included an unrestricted power to direct HMCI, but chose not to do so. We could have used the formulations used for public watchdogs such as the Director General of Fair Trading giving the Secretary of State a power to direct
38
the considerations to which the director should have particular regard in setting his priorities or exercising his functions. We chose not to do so. The power we did choose is probably the most limited possible, consistent with establishing an appropriate relationship between HMI and the Secretary of State with his wider policy responsibilities.
I do not believe that the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, answered my question about who was responsible for informing the Secretary of State. A reading of Raising the Standard shows beyond doubt that Her Majesty's Inspectorate's independence would be wholly compromised by that document. The noble Baroness asserts that the Labour Party's proposals would protect the independence of HMI, but let us take a look at those proposals. They state:
"we believe that those in HMI responsible for monitoring and inspection should come under the aegis of an ESC"—
that is, an Education Standards Commission. However, what does "under the aegis" mean? It looks obscure and it is meant to be. Does it mean that HMI will be in hock to the new statutory body, which is to be based on a quango, or that it is to be wholly independent? If it is to be independent, offering advice to the Secretary of State as it sees fit, what is the point of the quango?
The answer is given away in paragraph 34 of that document which, we are told, is to be translated into the Labour Party manifesto. It states that professional advice to Ministers will come either:
"from that group of HMI who would work, pro tem, as professional advisers within the DES;"—
Lord Callaghan of Cardiff: Perhaps the noble Baroness, Lady Blatch, will allow me to intervene?
Baroness Blatch: Perhaps I could just finish this point. It continues:
"in part by having access to advice direct from the ESC and its officials."
Ministers are not to get advice from HMI—I see that the noble Lord, Lord Callaghan of Cardiff, has again risen to his feet, but perhaps he will let me finish this point. According to the document, Ministers are not to get advice from HMI on monitoring or inspections; it will come from a quango appointed by Ministers and their officials. Who are these officials? What will they know? How should they be interposed between Ministers and Her Majesty's Inspectorate?
4.45 p.m.
Lord Callaghan of Cardiff: Perhaps the Minister will allow me to intervene.
Baroness Blatch: Perhaps I may be allowed the courtesy of finishing the point and then the noble Lord, Lord Callaghan, can comment on my whole point.
The amendment raises a fundamental debate about independence. We have set up a wholly acceptable system, with Her Majesty's Chief Inspector being given real independence. Later today we shall come to amendments that will fetter that real independence of HMCI. I have just read out a legitimate alternative to the system that we have established. My point in raising that was to state that we believe not only in the independence of the inspector, but that we have

39
introduced a Bill to guarantee that. That is where I rest my case. I give way to the noble Lord, Lord Callaghan, to comment on it.
Lord Callaghan of Cardiff: I am bound to say that I listened to the latter part of the Minister's speech with absolute amazement. What on earth did it have to do with the amendment? I gather that there has been some reproach about Second Reading speeches being made. The Government wish to proceed with the Bill with due speed, but we have just heard not merely an abuse of Second Reading procedures, but an abuse of any procedures—and I say that advisedly to the Minister. It is astonishing that she should use a narrow but important amendment to discuss something that is apparently in the Opposition's election manifesto. If I may say so with great respect, that is not the purpose or the function of Committee stage or of an amendment that is directed to the specific point of whether the chief inspector should be directed in some way or other —and it is not precise—by the Secretary of State. That is the point.
It is the Minister's duty either to defend or to attack what is in the amendment—not to go into other questions. I am sorry to have to say this to the Minister, but it appears that the Government would like to devise one rule for themselves on such matters, and another for the Opposition. The Minister will not make progress with the Bill if she starts doing such things at such an early stage in Committee.
Baroness Blatch: When we saw the amendments on the Marshalled List, it became obvious that we would not make fast progress. However, perhaps I may advise the noble Lord, Lord Callaghan, that everything that I have said in response to the amendment is entirely relevant to the issue of the independence of Her Majesty's Inspectorate—
Lord Callaghan of Cardiff: Not to the amendment.
Baroness Blatch: I repeat, to the amendment.
The case for independence is well made in the Bill, but the case for independence that has been made by Members of the Committee opposite in the amendment is not only wholly inconsistent with the amendments that we shall consider later, but also with what Members of the Committee opposite have put into the public arena as their alternative to HMCI.
Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge: As somebody not in any way concerned with Labour Party policy on this as I belong to a different party, I should like to support my late leader. In a long period in this House I do not think I have ever heard such a long disquisition which was entirely irrelevant to the debate.
Baroness Blackstone: I am most grateful to my noble friend Lord Callaghan of Cardiff for what he said, and indeed to the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, too. I too was rather shocked by the way the Minister used the response to a specific amendment to attack the policies of the Labour Party in a related area but bearing no relation whatsoever to the specific amendment. When we are in government and in fact
40
bringing a Bill to this House that will allow us to take our proposals further and to legislate, we shall be happy to answer questions on those proposals but not on an amendment to this Bill.
I come back now to the amendment. As my noble friend Lord Peston has said, any chief inspector should take account of government policy on equal opportunities, as was raised earlier, or indeed on any other matter. But it is unreal to imagine that an extremely senior educationist and official of the Government, even though independent, would ignore government policies. What we on this side of the Committee, and I think a number of other noble Lords around the Committee, cannot understand is why there is a need for this new clause. As the right reverend Prelate said, it is the particularising of certain aspects of government policy that causes concern.
Why are we departing from the status quo in this respect? I do not believe that the Minister has answered that question. She spent some time suggesting that later amendments would fetter the independence of the inspectorate. When we get to later amendments we shall tell her why she is completely wrong on that. Again it does not seem to me entirely appropriate to talk in a general way about later amendments rather than answering the issues that relate to the particular amendment.
However, I was grateful to the noble Baroness for clarifying the matter of unsolicited information and saying that this can be provided. I accept that, and I think that it is highly desirable. But why I am still concerned by what the noble Baroness said is that this clause does not simply ask chief inspectors to consider. It gives the Secretary of State powers of direction. The noble Baroness told us a bit about what the clause intends, but again we must be concerned in this Committee not with just what the clause intends but with what it says.
It may not be the intention of this Secretary of State, or indeed of other Secretaries of State, to tie the hands of the chief inspectors, but the problem is that this clause could allow them to do so. We have heard from the Minister that there is no intention to circumscribe. If there is no intention, why is this clause needed? I regret to say that we have not had a satisfactory reply to the concerns expressed from all around the Committee on this clause, and therefore I must divide the Committee.
4.54 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said amendment (No. 2) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 97; Not-Contents, 130.

Division No. 2

CONTENTS

Acton, L.

Blackstone, B.

Addington, L.

Bonham-Carter, L.

Airedale, L.

Boston of Faversham, L.

Allen of Abbeydale, L.

Bottomley, L.

Ardwick, L.

Callaghan of Cardiff, L.

Aylestone, L.

Carmichael of Kelvingrove, L

Baldwin of Bewdley, E.

Carter, L. [Teller.]

Beaumont of Whitley, L.

Cledwyn of Penrhos, L.

Beloff, L.

Crook, L.

Birk, B.

David, B.

41

Dean of Beswick, L.

Manchester, Bp.

Desai, L.

Mason of Barnsley, L.

Donaldson of Kingsbridge, L.

Milner of Leeds, L.

Dormand of Easington, L.

Molloy, L.

Ennals, L.

Morris of Castle Morris, L.

Ezra, L.

Murray of Epping Forest, L.

Falkender, B.

Nicol, B.

Falkland, V.

Ogmore, L.

Fisher of Rednal, B.

Palmer, L.

Foot, L.

Peston, L.

Galpern, L.

Phillips, B.

Glenamara, L.

Pitt of Hampstead, L.

Graham of Edmonton, L. [Teller.]

Prys-Davies, L.

Richard, L.

Greene of Harrow Weald, L.

Richardson, L.

Grey, E.

Ritchie of Dundee, L.

Guildford, Bp.

Robson of Kiddington, B

Hampden, V.

Rochester, L.

Hampton, L.

Ross of Newport, L.

Hamwee, B.

Russell, E.

Hanworth, V.

Sainsbury, L.

Henderson of Brompton, L.

Seear, B.

Hilton of Eggardon, B.

Serota, B.

Hollis of Heigham, B.

Shackleton, L.

Holme of Cheltenham, L.

Shaughnessy, L.

Howie of Troon, L.

Shepherd, L.

Hughes, L.

Stedman, B.

Jay, L.

Stoddart of Swindon, L

Jeger, B.

Strabolgi, L.

Jenkins of Hillhead, L.

Taylor of Blackburn, L.

Jenkins of Putney, L.

Tordoff, L.

Kilbracken, L.

Underhill, L.

Kirkwood, L.

Wallace of Coslany, L.

Lichfield, Bp.

Walton of Detchant, L.

Listowel, E.

Warnock, B.

Lovell-Davis, L.

Wharton, B.

McFarlane of Llandaff, B.

White, B.

McNair, L.

Williams of Elvel, L.

Mallalieu, B.

Wilson of Rievaulx, L.

NOT-CONTENTS

Aldington, L.

Elliot of Harwood, B.

Alexander of Tunis, E.

Elliott of Morpeth, L.

Alport, L.

Elton, L.

Annan, L.

Fanshawe of Richmond, L.

Arran, E.

Ferrers, E.

Astor, V.

Gainford, L.

Auckland, L.

Gardner of Parkes, B.

Balfour, E.

Geddes, L.

Barber, L.

Gisborough, L.

Belhaven and Stenton, L.

Goschen, V.

Bellwin, L.

Gridley, L.

Bessborough, E.

Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, L.

Birdwood, L.

Blatch, B.

Hardinge of Penshurst, L.

Blyth, L.

Harmar-Nicholls, L.

Boardman, L.

Henley, L.

Borthwick, L.

Hertford, M.

Boyd-Carpenter, L.

Hesketh, L. [Teller.]

Brabazon of Tara, L.

HolmPatrick, L.

Brightman, L.

Hood, V.

Brigstocke, B.

Hooper, B.

Brookeborough, V.

Howe, E.

Brougham and Vaux, L.

Hylton-Foster, B.

Butterworth, L.

Iddesleigh, E.

Caithness, E.

Jellicoe, E.

Campbell of Alloway, L.

Jenkin of Roding, L.

Carnegy of Lour, B.

Johnston of Rockport, L.

Carnock, L.

Joseph, L.

Cavendish of Furness, L.

Killearn, L.

Cockfield, L.

Kimball, L.

Coleraine, L.

King of Wartnaby, L.

Colnbrook, L.

Laing of Dunphail, L.

Crathorne, L.

Lane of Horsell, L.

Cullen of Ashbourne, L.

Lauderdale, E.

Dacre of Glanton, L.

Long, V.

Denham, L.

Lyell, L.

Denton of Wakefield, B.

McAlpine of West Green, L.

Eccles, V.

Mackay of Clashfern, L.

Eccles of Moulton, B.

Macleod of Borve, B.

42

Mancroft, L.

Rennell, L.

Margadale, L.

Renton, L.

Marlesford, L.

Rippon of Hexham, L.

Marsh, L.

St. Davids, V.

Mersey, V.

Saltoun of Abernethy, LY.

Monk Bretton, L.

Sanderson of Bowden, L.

Montgomery of Alamein, V.

Savile, L.

Morris, L.

Seccombe, B.

Mottistone, L.

Shrewsbury, E.

Mowbray and Stourton, L.

Skelmersdale, L.

Moyne, L.

Skidelsky of Tilton, L.

Munster, E.

Strathcarron, L.

Nelson, E.

Strathclyde, L.

Newall, L.

Strathmore and Kinghorne, E. [Teller.]

Northbourne, L.

Onslow, E.

Sudeley, L.

Orkney, E.

Teviot, L.

Oxfuird, V.

Thomas of Gwydir, L.

Pearson of Rannoch, L.

Trefgarne, L.

Pender, L.

Trumpington, B.

Perry of Southwark, B.

Ullswater, V.

Peyton of Yeovil, L.

Vaux of Harrowden, L.

Platt of Writtle, B.

Waddington, L.

Prentice, L.

Windlesham, L.

Quinton, L.

Wise, L.

Rankeillour, L.

Wolfson, L.

Renfrew of Kaimsthorn, L.

Young, B.

Resolved in the negative, and amendment disagreed to accordingly.
5.2 p.m.
Baroness David Baroness David moved Amendment No. 3:
Page 1, line 7, leave out ("Schools") and insert ("Education").
The noble Baroness said: I shall speak also to Amendments Nos. 8, 22, 47, 52 and 72. The amendment deletes the word "schools" and inserts "education" in its place in Clauses 1 and 5. The subsection would then read:
"Her Majesty may by Order in Council appoint a person to the office of Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Education in England",
and Clause 5 relates to Wales.
The reason for the amendments is that the Secretary of State should be advised about the whole of the education service, including the quality assessment committees for further and higher education proposed in the Further and Higher Education Bill, the youth service and adult education, by one body. The most appropriate body is HMI.
Amendments Nos. 22 and 52 would change in Clause 2(1):
"the quality of the education provided by schools in England",
to:
"the quality of the education provided by all forms of educational provision".
The amendments would not just restate Section 77(1) of the Education Act 1944, they would widen its scope by referring to provision rather than establishments. The former term would embrace units and centres, educational outreach and other informal education. The Bill, as presently drafted, would narrow the focus of HMI and insert more breaks into the educational continuum.
Concepts of quality in education are likely to be universal, although there will be differences of assessment and response related to the various levels of education. HMCI would be the most appropriate custodian of the principles of rigorous, dispassionate and consistent inspection. HMI's report would

43
continue to inform and disseminate good practice around every type of public educational activity. The breadth of focus would counteract the natural tendency to narrowness and introspection of many schools. Many divisions in education have been opened up, including the split between LEA-maintained and grant-maintained schools, and the removal of polytechnics from LEAs. Although the Further and Higher Education Bill would bring the universities and polytechnics together, there will remain a division—a new binary line has been referred to—between them and the rest of the higher education qualities. Yet the Secretary of State still has the apparent unitary duty to promote the education of the people (Section 1 of the 1944 Act). Continuing the concept of an HM Inspectorate across all education would greatly assist the unified discharge of that duty.
The Further and Higher Education Bill, as the Committee will doubtless remember, was amended on Report by the insertion of a new clause to give Her Majesty's Chief Inspector the same powers of inspection in relation to education institutions, other than schools, maintained or assisted by LEAs, as the present Bill gives in relation to schools. It would also give in respect of such institutions the general duty set out in the provisions of the present Bill to keep the Secretary of State informed about the quality of education provided, educational standards achieved, and whether the financial resources made available to those institutions were managed efficiently.
It would be logical in the present Bill, therefore, to give HMCI a duty to cover the whole of education. The separation of a school's inspectorate from the inspection of the rest of the education system weakens HMI as a whole. Acceptance of the amendments would avoid that weakness and strengthen the inspectorate's position. The amendments are reasonable. I hope that the Committee is ready to accept them. I beg to move.
Lord Renfrew of Kaimsthorn: My Lords, I wish to speak to Amendments No. 22 and 52. It is well known that the Opposition have a policy that they would like to see a unified national single body for the assessment of quality in education. That is a legitimate objective. However, it is to be doubted whether it is a legitimate objective within the framework of a Bill entitled the Education (Schools) Bill. There have been no amendments to change the title or the initial provision:
"An Act to make provision with respect to the inspection of schools",
and so forth. To modify Clause 2(1) (a) to provide:
"The Chief Inspector for England shall have the general duty of keeping the Secretary of State informed about the quality of the education provided in all forms of educational provision",
is going a long way.
To give the chief inspector the duty to inform the Secretary of State about the quality of provision in universities or further education institutions through amendment of a clause in the Education (Schools) Bill is a backward and inappropriate way of proceeding. I am sure that we appreciate that that is the Opposition's general wish and intention, and if they
44
are elected into government in the near future—I make no comment about the likelihood of that eventuality—they will be able to take an early opportunity to introduce a Bill setting up their unified quality assessment quango. That would be an appropriate procedure, but to suggest in this Bill that by amendment we could make the Chief Inspector for England responsible for keeping an eye on universities and further education institutions would be a strange provision.
Baroness David: I did not mention universities.
Lord Renfrew of Kaimsthorn: With due respect, we are talking about the quality of education for all forms of educational provision. I would claim that the universities are one part of this nation's educational provision. That is the reason I oppose the amendment.
Baroness David: I apologise to the Committee. I forgot to mention the other two amendments which have been linked. Amendments Nos. 47 and 72 were not grouped over the weekend, but they have been grouped today. I mentioned them at the outset but then forgot to speak to them. It might be sensible if I spoke to them before the Minister replies. Presumably they were grouped in her response, and so it will be easier for her if I say something about them now.
Amendment No. 72 is the Welsh equivalent of Amendment No. 47. The effect of Amendment No. 47 would be to give HMCI the leading role of co-ordinating fair comparisons between sixth forms in the schools sector and the small amount of LEA-maintained post-16 provision that is not being moved into the new FE sector by the Further and Higher Education Bill and academic and vocational post-16 provision in the new FE sector. At present there is no provision in that Bill or this for co-ordination between the two sectors of inspection and published information.
I shall now say a few words about the background to this matter. Inspections of institutions in the new FE sector are to be conducted by quality assessment committees of each funding council, except for Wales where Clause 9(4) of the Further and Higher Education Bill provides for the possible involvement of HMCI if asked by the FE funding council for Wales. There is no mention of the role of HMCI in the new FE sector. Amendment No. 72 may be unnecessary for Wales because of that provision if it is to be assumed that HMCI would in all cases be able to operate in two sectors with a view to promoting fair comparisons between them.
Amendment No. 47 for England is certainly necessary. Provision has already been made in what is now Clause 55 of the Further and Higher Education Bill for HMCI to inspect and report on LEA maintained institutions other than schools. Under this Bill and the Further and Higher Education Bill taken together there will be a messy set of arrangements for inspecting post-16 provision and publishing information from those inspections.
This amendment aims to secure at least a minimum of co-ordination so that students can make fair comparisons between post-16 education in schools

45
sixth forms and FE colleges. The amendment urges closer liaison between HMCI for schools and the quality assessment committees of FE funding councils. The leading partner would be HMCI, which would also in case of difficulties have ultimate recourse to giving advice to the Secretary of State. Can the Minister tell us how many members of the present HMI will be used in the quality assessment committees? I believe there are about 170 inspectors who may be allocated to further education inspections. I hope the Minister can tell us how many of the inspectors will be involved in the quality assessment committees. As I have said, it is rather confusing at present to determine how the assessment will work when these different bodies will do the same work in schools sixth forms, the FE sector and sixth form colleges. A slightly different arrangement has already been made in respect of Wales.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: Before my noble friend replies, the Committee should understand what these amendments are designed to cover. The noble Baroness intervened at the end of the speech of my noble friend who is sitting behind me to say she had not mentioned universities. That is true as a matter of historic fact. However, it is perfectly plain that unless one is to argue that the universities are nothing to do with education—that would be a remarkable proposition, even coming from the Opposition Front Bench—it seems to me that this amendment would ensure that the inspectors of schools covered universities. I hesitate to speculate on the storms which such intervention on their part would provoke in certain of the universities. Many Members of this House have direct connections with universities and they would no doubt be in a position to say something about that matter.
If it is intended to move the inspectorate of schools to cover the universities, that is a remarkable proposition. It is a still more remarkable proposition to put in the course of moving an amendment without referring to the universities at all and when priding oneself on the fact that one has not referred to the universities. We want to know whether the noble Baroness in moving this amendment wishes to extend the cover and scope of the schools inspectorate to the universities. If that is the case, a considerable argument for that remarkable extension is required.
Lord Peston: Under the Bill the inspectorate will no longer be the schools inspectorate: it will be the inspectorate. It will not be limited to schools in a technical sense, as I understand the position. However, that is by the way. I ask the noble Lord to understand that even up to the present day Her Majesty's Inspectors can inspect polytechnics which hope to be universities in the near future. The idea that has been put forward is not quite as far-fetched as the noble Lord implied. I speak as a university teacher and as someone who knows something about school inspection. I am not at all certain that some of our universities would not benefit from the kind of inspections that schools have been subject to. Having said all of that to make a little mischief, I do not believe remotely that my noble friend's amendment
46
can be read that way. However, if Members of the Committee wish to read it that way, I should say that we can alter that provision purely by means of redrafting the amendment.
I hope we can conduct our proceedings in ways that are relevant to the material before us. What is fundamental is the range of areas that the new inspectorate should occupy itself with. It is a perfectly good technical point to say education includes universities, but that is slightly beside the point of the content of my noble friend's speech. The noble Lord, Lord Renfrew, did not say he agreed with my noble friend provided the drafting was changed. He said he did not like the idea that was proposed anyway. However, we should be debating the idea of this matter, that is the range of considerations the inspectorate should be engaged in. I did not intend to intervene here but we should not indulge in toing and froing on other matters when what we should be doing is trying to discuss the essence of this subject and where we differ on it. It is important to clarify where we differ on this matter. I believe my noble friend's contribution made it clear where we stand on this issue.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: Is the noble Lord arguing then that the amendment does not bite on the universities?
5.15 p.m.
Baroness White: I hope I may intervene here. I do not know whether the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, has realised that the grouping of these amendments is, to my mind, rather unfortunate. It is confusing to group Amendment No. 47 and Amendment No. 72—the Welsh equivalent—with the other amendment. If the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, has read Amendment No. 47 and/or Amendment No. 72, he will realise that the provision he has drawn attention to is perfectly well spelt out in those two amendments.
Lord Peston: I hope I may respond to the noble Lord. I have admitted that a perfectly good debating point is made if one says that education includes all aspects of education. I entirely accept that education includes the universities. There is nothing between us on that point. I am simply saying that my noble friend is entitled to expect the Committee to listen to the content of her speech. She should be given the benefit of the doubt as regards Members of the Committee interpreting what she has said. After all, the Minister has asked us to accept the intentions of the Government. Therefore I say with respect that it is not a terribly helpful contribution to start making debating points when we are trying to discuss the range of activities the inspectorate should be engaged in. My noble friend is not pressing the point about universities being inspected by the inspectorate. I freely admit I made a similar debating point when I asked why that should not be the case. However, that is not what the amendment is about.
Lord Renfrew of Kaimsthorn: I would not wish to be accused of pedantry. The truth is that often in reading

47
amendments one has to work hard to infer what they mean. That is not a new experience. It is quite clear that Amendment No. 22 includes universities within its scope.
It is perfectly reasonable for the Opposition to say that, on reflection, they may wish to reword the amendment. I perfectly understand that. However, the interpretation is not inconsistent with what I understand to be the policy of the Opposition, which is that they want a unified quango which will undertake assessment. I am not proposing to discuss that matter. I simply wish to explain that that seems to me a perfectly logical inference. I am certainly happy to understand it is not the intention to extend this matter so far through this amendment. From that I infer that this amendment will be withdrawn.
We have Report stage before us where a more precise amendment can be tabled. However, I do not think we have to address ourselves simply to what the noble Baroness, Lady David, said. We must also address ourselves to what her amendment states. I am sorry if that seems pedantic. It is not intended to be. I am sure this is a matter to which we can return later. I fully understand from the explanation that has been given that a different distinction was intended.
Baroness Blackstone: I hope I may clarify the matter. It is not the policy of the Opposition that Her Majesty's Inspectorate should inspect universities. I wish to make that absolutely clear. The purpose of the amendments is to ensure that inspectors who have to advise the Secretary of State about education as a whole should be able to inspect further education colleges, which after all are teaching 16 to 19 year-old students who are covering similar courses in many cases to those that are being taught in schools and are taking the same examinations. There is a strong case for inspectors being able to compare and contrast the quality of work being carried out in both types of institution and for Her Majesty's Inspectorate, which has always had a duty to inspect the youth and community service, to be able to continue to do so. We want that clarified in the Bill.
In addition, Her Majesty's Inspectorate has always had a duty to inspect adult education, by which I mean not adult education at university level, but lower level adult education courses. The purpose of the amendments is to make sure that Her Majesty's Inspectorate can continue to have an overview of the education system other than in the universities where, in our view, it would not be appropriate for it to be involved.
Lord Walton of Detchant: Perhaps I may make a very brief point. I wholly agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Renfrew, said about the necessity of withdrawing Amendment No. 22. If new amendments are introduced at Report stage in relation to the powers of the chief inspector to examine any institutions in the higher education field, whatever they may be, or in further education, it is important that it is recognised that there are certain educational courses in such institutions which are controlled by statutory bodies which have the authority to examine
48
the standards of the education which is provided. I sympathise with some of the intentions underlying the amendments, but Amendment No. 22 would not be acceptable to anyone in higher education at present.
Baroness Blatch: Perhaps I may say that we on these Benches are recipients of the groupings and simply had to accept them as they were presented to us. I should also like to say in defence of my noble friends Lord Boyd-Carpenter and Lord Renfrew that my admiration for people who apply so much time and energy to understanding such amendments, which, in isolation, often appear to be gobbledegook, knows no bounds. Until noble Lords speak to those amendments in this Chamber all we have to go on is the literal wording of the amendment. It is the literal wording that one has to accept.
It is all very well for the noble Lord, Lord Peston, to deal with the matter in a general way. However, at the end of the day what we are talking about, and what will be culled from the debates and from the determinations of Parliament, is the wording which will appear in the legislation and which will have a real impact on people. It is important that we see the amendments in that light.
On the subject of the scope of the Bill, perhaps I may say to the noble Baroness that the Bill simply cannot be extended at this stage to cover aspects other than school education. Giving additional functions to HMI in respect of adult and community education, which the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, has just said is important, must, for that very reason, be dealt with in the Further and Higher Education Bill. I find it surprising that it was not recalled at this stage that adult and community education will continue to receive attention from HMI and the youth service.
In relation to the transfer of HMI to funding councils and the number of inspectors involved, as is well known, 140 inspectors deal with the further and higher education sectors other than teacher training. It will be a matter for the funding councils to determine which of those will be involved in co-operation and co-ordination between the sectors. It is also true to say that the quality assurance arms of the higher and further education funding councils will deal with inspection in those sectors.
The Further and Higher Education Bill which was recently before this House makes provision for advice to the Secretary of State on quality and standards in further and higher education and for the new funding councils to have the information they need to inform their work. It would be quite inappropriate for us to overturn those provisions, now being considered in another place, by giving the chief inspectors a duty which extended into all sectors of education.
At this point perhaps I may apologise to the noble Baroness, Lady White. I have referred so often to the chief inspector in the course of our debates but much of the time, although not exclusively, I am referring to the Chief Inspector for Wales as well as the Chief Inspector for England. I apologise to the noble Baroness for that.
Baroness White: That apology is accepted, needless to say. However, can the Minister also give an

49
indication as to whether the figures given, such as the reference to 140 inspectors, relate to England only or to England and Wales?
Baroness Blatch: If the noble Baroness will bear with me, in this particular instance I shall come to a distinction between England and Wales.
As I said, it would be quite inappropriate for us to overturn those provisions, now being considered in another place, by giving HMCI a duty which extended into all sectors of education. Indeed, it would be outside the scope of the Bill. I have already addressed that point.
The Bill secures that HMI will oversee provision in schools, and in teacher training. Because of the limited scope of the Bill we had to use the Further and Higher Education Bill to give HMI powers in respect of adult education and youth service provision made by local education authorities. That Bill also empowers HMCI to give advice on such other matters relating to further education as the Secretary of State may request. That fully meets the needs. In Wales, where the further and higher education sector is much smaller, it is accepted that it may be right to use HMI to offer advice to the funding councils rather than have them maintain their own inspectorates. That was fully debated earlier and no case was made in this Chamber for a parallel provision for England. The necessary powers in respect of Wales are already included in the Further and Higher Education Bill.
While the division of responsibility is as I have noted, I accept that parents and students will want to be able to compare provision made for pupils aged 16 to 19 on a consistent basis. The main source of comparative information will be the published tables of performance information in both sectors. It is intended that FE colleges and schools should publish information in a way which will allow such comparisons to be made. Care is being taken to ensure that information on the public examination results and destinations of school and college leavers is, in 1992, published so far as practicable in a common format. HMCI will, of course, have that information available to him or her in addition to published inspection reports relating to the two sectors.
Inspection reports on schools with sixth forms will deal with all subject areas covered for the 16 to 19 age group within the school. In the FE sector, we expect the funding councils to operate, as HMI does now, by commissioning subject surveys across the whole sector rather than general inspections of each institution. It will, however, be possible to generate from that material a document equivalent to a general inspection report for an individual institution, thus enabling comparisons to be made across 16 to 19 age group provision as a whole.
I accept that the division of responsibilities will require a degree of co-operation between HMCI and the quality control arms of the councils. Teacher education and provision for 16 to 19 year-olds are obvious areas where they will need to work together, but I do not see that as a great problem.
I do not intend here to rerun debates on whether sixth form colleges should have been transferred to the further education sector. That Bill has been sent from
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this Chamber with that provision included and we must now accept that. HMCI will have to know about developments across the whole span of education for pupils from 16 to 19 to put his advice to the Secretary of State in context. He can do that without having specific duties in the FE sector.
Reference was made, not only by my noble friends on these Benches but also by the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, to the role of HMI in the proposals of the noble Baroness. Perhaps I may say to the noble Lord, Lord Peston, that I thought that he was less than fair in his comments when he appealed to Members of the Committee to keep to the amendments. I do not believe that in the debate on this amendment a single word has been spoken which is not relevant to the subject before us.
I shall read again from the Labour Party document, which states:
"The Commission and its inspectorate will cover further education, tertiary and sixth form colleges as well as nursery, primary and secondary schools. We are giving further consideration to its role"—
"it" being HMI—
"in higher education in the context of the Party's already published Quality Assurance proposals for this sector".
That was a perfectly legitimate point for my noble friends Lord Boyd-Carpenter and Lord Renfrew to raise.
Lord Peston: Perhaps I may interrupt the noble Baroness. I did not say that what the noble Lords said was beside the point; I was trying to be as conciliatory as I could. I just felt that they were being a trifle pedantic, which was the word used by the noble Lord, Lord Renfrew. My noble friend had made the intention behind her amendment very clear and I am keen to proceed with the business. If we are to scrutinise amendments in that pedantic way we shall be here right through the night. That was all I asked. I do not seek to put a stop on what noble Lords may say, but my noble friend said that that is not what she was talking about. I would have felt it slightly less than generous not to have accepted what she said. That was all that I was raising.
Lord Renfrew of Kaimsthorn: Perhaps I may intervene at this point to say that there is always the risk that the amendment might be carried. That is what worries us.
Baroness Blatch: Perhaps I could say in defence of all I said earlier that this is the moment to be pedantic. This is precisely what we are doing. We are now refining our debates. We have finished with Second Reading and debates outside the Chamber. We are determining the precise wording of the legislation. Because of that, I defend entirely the right of my noble friends to be as pedantic as they wish. In fact, I invite all Members of the Committee to be pedantic. In the course of these debates we want to get the wording right. I hope that the amendments will not be pressed.
Lord Elton: Before my noble friend sits down, perhaps she will clarify a point. I hope she will forgive me if I misunderstood her or misunderstood what she said at Third Reading. I thought at Third Reading that I was given an assurance that colleges and

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departments of education which train teachers would be subject to inspection. Do I understand her to say that they will be subject to inspection by a different agency from the one set up by this Bill, or is it the same one?
Baroness Blatch: No. I am not sure that I can find the precise words, but I believe I said that it will be across the schools sector and those parts of higher education which are responsible for teacher training—by HMI.
Lord Elton: I am grateful to the noble Baroness. Until we have the teacher training colleges, we shall not get the schools right.
Baroness Blatch: That is right.
5.30 p.m.
Baroness David: I think I have been misunderstood. I said that the quality assessment committees for further and higher education proposed in the FHE Bill, the youth service and adult education should be looked at by a single body. In fact in replying the noble Baroness said that the chief inspector will have to cover the whole span of 16 to 19 year-olds. That is the area in which we have the greatest anxiety because there will be a quality assessment committee for sixth form colleges, the FE sector—there will apparently be 140 or so HMIs still looking at the FHE sector—and there will be the HMI for schools looking at the schools' sixth forms. So there is a bit of a muddle.
Perhaps the amendments could have been worded better, particularly Amendment No. 22 and the corresponding one for Wales, Amendment No. 52. I am not satisfied that the matter has been settled satisfactorily but it may be best for me to withdraw Amendment No. 3 for the time being and come back with a more precisely worded amendment at Report stage. I do not feel that the situation is satisfactory.
Baroness Blatch: I am most grateful to the noble Baroness. Perhaps I may remind her that we cannot extend the scope of the Bill. I believe that I gave very good reasons for saying that it could not be extended. She may have in mind to come back with a form of wording that extends HMI into other sectors of education, but it simply cannot be done in this Bill.
Baroness David: Similar amendments were accepted in the other place, and these amendments were accepted by the Public Bill Office. However, I note what the noble Baroness says. I shall withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Baroness Blackstone Baroness Blackstone moved Amendment No. 4:
Page 1, line 8, at end insert:
("( ) The Secretary of State shall make a recommendation to Her Majesty for such an appointment only if the relevant person has been selected by the Civil Service Commission through open competition.").
The noble Baroness said: In moving this amendment, I shall speak also to Amendment No. 9. They are simple amendments which put on the face of the Bill what the Government have already said they
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would do, when asked about the replacement of the last senior chief inspector, Mr. Eric Bolton. Therefore I hope that Ministers will have no difficulty in accepting them.
As the Committee knows, the Civil Service Commission is an independent body with considerable expertise in the recruitment and selection of senior people to work in central government. As such, it seems to us to be the right body to supervise the appointment of chief inspectors. It is also vital that those appointments should take place after open competition. That guards against the danger of political appointments, which I am sure the Committee would consider highly inappropriate and indeed retrograde with reference to what is agreed should be posts filled by people who are independent and experts rather than parti pris in any political sense.
Once selection has taken place under the auspices of the commission, it is for the Secretary of State to endorse the appointment. However, it would be wrong that the Secretary of State could influence such an appointment by choosing someone who he thought would share his political views or educational philosophy. Were that to happen, the independence of the inspectorate as a whole, not just the chief inspectors, would be jeopardised.
The reason why people are worried that that might happen relates, I regret to say, to the current Secretary of State's recent record in appointing highly partisan individuals to certain senior positions, of which the most recent example is the chairman of the School Examinations and Assessment Council. There are now rumours—I admit that they are no more than rumours—that the Secretary of State intends to appoint the head of the Centre for Policy Studies to be the chief inspector for England. I cannot believe that that is the case, since the person concerned is not only extremely partisan but also unqualified. However, I am sure that if those rumours are untrue, the Minister will deny them when replying.
The principle remains that the Civil Service Commission and open competition is the right way to guard against such appointments not just by this Government but by any government. I beg to move.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: The effect of the amendments is to transfer from the Secretary of State to the Civil Service Commission responsibility for the choice of this important official. No doubt that is the intention. But I suggest that they also introduce a certain undesirable degree of rigidity. It may well be possible, particularly when the first appointment is being made, for the Secretary of State rightly to select someone in an established position elsewhere. However, that person may not be prepared to enter into open competition before the Civil Service Commission, although he is an obvious choice for the post. I do not know whom my noble friend may have in mind. The amendment will inhibit somewhat the freedom of choice for what I am sure the noble Baroness agrees is a most important appointment. I would much rather see this passage not included.
Baroness White: Perhaps I may draw the Committee's attention to the Written Answer given by the Secretary of State for Wales on 29th January, in which, inter alia, he says:
"I am strengthening the independence of HMI by creating a separate department headed by HMCI. HMI [Her Majesty's Inspectors] will no longer be members of the Welsh Office"—
therefore under the direct control of the Secretary of State for Wales—
"but will remain civil servants retaining their existing terms and conditions of service".—[official Report, Commons, 29/1/92; col. 577.]
If they are civil servants, surely the machinery for appointing civil servants should be employed.
Baroness Denton of Wakefield: I hope that I shall please the Committee by being brief. As the noble Baroness said, this is a very simple matter. We had to resist these amendments in another place and do so again because they tie the Secretary of State's hands unhelpfully.
The chief inspectors will head their own non-ministerial departments and as such will be Crown office holders. There are no general rules governing the appointment of Crown office holders and it would certainly be unprecedented to lay down in statute the method of appointment.
The posts of chief inspectors are entirely new positions. My right honourable friends want to be able to choose the best person for each post without being bound to one particular method of selection as against another. There is no guarantee that a particular method will necessarily produce the best person. The last senior chief inspector was appointed by open competition but my right honourable friend failed to find a successor to him by that method. Rounds of readvertisement do not guarantee finding whom you need—indeed they tend to downgrade the post in the sight of possible applicants.
A variety of methods have been used to select people for posts of this kind. The heads of OFTEL and OFGAS and the new Director General of Fair Trading were appointed after executive search. On the other hand, an open competition was chosen for the appointment of the new Director of Public Prosecutions, as it was for her predecessor. But in no case does that provision appear on the face of the Bill. I can reassure the noble Baroness and other noble Lords that the Government will do whatever is necessary to secure the right candidate for those important new posts.
The Department of Education and Science is currently in discussion with a firm of executive search agents which they hope to appoint shortly to draw up a short list of possible candidates for the post of HMCI in England. It is the intention to ask a panel chaired by the first Civil Service Commissioner—I hope that that will reassure the noble Baroness—to interview and select from among that short list a name to recommend to the Secretary of State. That is a procedure that we believe will lead to the identification of a good candidate. Decisions have yet to be taken about the selection of the Welsh chief inspector. A different procedure may be appropriate. That is one reason why we are opposed to any one method of
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appointment being laid down for all time on the face of the Bill. I hope that the noble Baroness will feel able to withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Blackstone: I am grateful to the noble Baroness for her reply, in particular for the information that the posts will be Crown office holders. Although there are no general rules at present, it does not prevent us from establishing general rules with regard to those appointments.
I am also grateful to the noble Baroness for saying that the best person for each post will be appointed. However, in my fairly extensive experience of appointing people to a wide range of posts in the public sector, open competition is usually the best way to attain the best person. Through advertisement it opens up to the largest number of persons who may be interested in such a post the opportunity to apply. That method of appointing people is also generally considered to be the most appropriate with regard to equal opportunities. Women as well as men, and people from the ethnic minority communities as well as white people, can apply. I do not believe that it is inconsistent with open competition also to have a system of executive search. That is indeed what often happens. A post is advertised and anyone who wishes can apply; but an executive search to encourage certain people to apply can be instituted at the same time.
The noble Baroness states that it has been impossible to find a successor to the last senior chief inspector after open competition. I am not surprised that no one wants the job in the light of what the Government now propose to do. Having seen what was coming, I suspect that some people felt that the job was no longer as worth doing as it had been in the past.
However, I shall consider again what the noble Baroness said. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Baroness David Baroness David moved Amendment No. 5:
Page 1, line 10, at end insert ("having regard to the numbers and experience of inspectors required to carry out their duties, with their individual expertise in nursery, primary, middle, secondary or special educational needs identified.").
The noble Baroness said: In moving Amendment No. 5 I shall speak also to Amendment No. 11, the corresponding amendment for Wales.
At Committee stage in another place the debate highlighted the need for the number of HMIs to be adequate to function under the new system of schools inspection. The Secretary of State has stated that he and the senior chief inspector of HMI regard 175 as the best estimate of the number required when HMI assumes its new role in England. HMI's own internal review recommended 380. The review undertaken by the Secretary of State for Wales has not yet reported. If the reduction in HMIs is of a similar size as for England, there are serious doubts that HMI will be able to carry out its responsibilities.
The amendments emphasise the need for the number of HMIs to relate directly to the needs of the education system and maintain the independence of

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the chief inspector to recommend the numbers and experience required by HMI. We also believe that the experience of inspectors should include the need for them to hold the status of a qualified teacher.
In moving the Bill, the Secretary of State stated categorically that the vast majority of inspectors will be qualified teachers. That is essential if teachers in schools are to have respect and confidence in the new system. The widely acknowledged integrity of HMI to date has derived from its individual experience of classroom practice and work of teachers. It is imperative that the specific experience and expertise of inspectors are also recognised.
The organisation and curriculum of primary, middle and secondary schools vary considerably, with additional expertise in areas such as special educational needs and nursery education. To report on the effectiveness of education inspectors need to be aware of the abilities and expectations of particular age groups of pupils. The needs and opportunities for in-service training vary between each phase of school.
In training, registering and monitoring registered inspectors, HMI should at the very least make sure that those paying for the inspection service are aware of the one or more areas of expertise of the registered inspector. That in turn implies that inspection teams will clearly be identified as capable of carrying out inspections in the particular phase of a school. Some schools may have nursery classes attached; others may not. Some schools will have the special educational needs of some children integrated into their main provision. Those and other factors must be taken into account when an inspection is planned.
I believe that it is important that all the factors referred to in the amendment are considered when inspectors are being recruited. I beg to move.
5.45 p.m.
Lord Ritchie of Dundee: I add the support of these Benches for the amendment. It is generally feared in the education world that there will be a shortage of expertise with the reduced number of HMI. It is most important when one of the new inspection teams goes to a school that there should be adequate supervision, with specialist knowledge of the specific provisions that the school offers. I was considering in particular special educational needs, which is a very specialist subject.
Baroness Fisher of Rednal: I add my support for the amendment. I too believe that the specialist training and teaching required for children who are classified as partially deaf or deaf and partially blind should be recognised. If they are being used properly, such skills can only be recognised by experts in the field. Those experts should be part of an inspection team.
It is important to recognise that many schools now have pupils with learning difficulties. Not all schools are able to cope. During a recent debate in this House, the noble Baroness, Lady Warnock, and other speakers, including myself, referred to the difficulties of schools with children with learning difficulties. Members of the inspection team not only need to
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understand the problem but they also need to be able to give expert advice and have the ability to report to the Secretary of State the difficulty that the schools may have with regard to shortages of speech therapists and child psychologists. The Secretary of State will then be aware that, while the schools wish to do the best they can for children with special needs, they need more back-up.
Baroness Young: We all understand why the noble Baroness has put the amendment down. The underlying anxiety that runs through the debates on the inspectorate is that the new inspectorate will not be qualified to deal with the variety of educational matters that it will be called upon to inspect.
I do not know what my noble friend will say about the amendment. I suspect that she will say that it is unnecessary. It appears to me that it will be one of the functions of the chief inspectors and the other inspectors to ensure that there are enough suitably-qualified people among the inspectorate to cover all the different types of schools, including special schools. I suspect that many people who become inspectors will have been teachers or will have worked in education and, if not, that they will receive training.
I suspect that the amendment is not necessary and that to lay down the provision in this way is prescriptive. Clearly the inspectors must cover such areas, and I believe that the chief inspector will make it his or her responsibility to ensure that they are covered.
Baroness Warnock: If that is so, I hope that the amendment is at least considered by the Government because the provision ought to be made prescriptive. The Bill should lay down specifically that there should be expertise in all the different areas. It would please me if there were more specification of the type of special educational needs which should be identified. That something can be presumed to happen is put forward too often as a reason for not putting a provision on the face of the Bill. Quite often something does not happen because it is not on the face of the Bill. Therefore, I support the amendment and ask the Government to think carefully about writing it into Clause 1.
Lord Elton: I hope that in reply my noble friend will bear in mind that if we put one measure into a Bill we specifically exclude another. Inclusio unius implies exclusio alterius. The fact that nursery, primary, middle, secondary and special educational needs are identified and no others suggests that all others take second place and may be discounted. That is a dangerous precedent to start. We confront the same argument when setting up advisory boards in this Chamber. Everyone wishes to appoint someone to sit on the board and eventually there are 185 people. One merely has to set out a board with X number of people and leave the specialisms unstated. We are in the same type of country when dealing with this amendment.
Baroness Blatch: Perhaps I may deal, first, with Amendments Nos. 5 and 11. I admit from the outset that I understand the anxieties behind the amendments. However, it is important to make the

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distinction between HMIs with their individual competence and expertise and the teams who will work with registered inspectors and who will physically visit the schools to inspect different departments, which will include special education among other aspects of education. Once the new system is in full operation we envisage that HMCIs will put forward names to the Privy Council, as the Secretary of State does now, so that Her Majesty may appoint HMIs as necessary. This is part of the chief inspector's new role and he or she will of course want to be satisfied that HMIs have the numbers and spread of expertise necessary to carry out their tasks.
This is the first amendment in respect of which we believe it important to leave the matter to the professionalism of the chief inspector. This is the first amendment that fetters the discretion of the chief inspector.
The numbers of HMIs to be appointed will of course depend on the resources which the chief inspector has available. Like any other head of a government department he or she will negotiate that sum each year with the Treasury in the light of policy priorities. The chief inspectors can certainly ask for what they believe they need and if they do not consider that they have sufficient staff they can say so quite publicly.
As for identifying the expertise of HMIs, some may indeed have a specific expertise in one of the areas mentioned in the amendment but others may be expert in one subject and competent to inspect in various types of school. Others may in future have management expertise and experience. We do not want all HMIs to carry a suffix—HMIP for primary or HMIS for special—which might call into question their ability to operate, as many now do, across phases. I hope that that is not what is envisaged. But I am not sure how the identification of expertise would work otherwise—except, in practice, to inform HMCI in making his decision about whose name to put forward. That surely goes without saying.
This amendment is one of many where Members of the Committee opposite want to offer direction to HMCI where we are content to leave matters to him.
The noble Baroness, Lady Fisher, made an important point and referred to the 1981 report compiled by the noble Baroness, Lady Warnock. I know that that is a most sensitive subject in this Chamber and one about which Members feel passionate, and rightly so. When the new system is up and running it will do more than the workings of any inspectorate has done in the past to tell us exactly how the 1981 Act is working. I believe that all Members of the Committee will consider that the feedback of such sound information to the Secretary of State is most important. The teams of inspectors who visit the schools with the registered inspectors must consist of people who are qualified for the task. If the task is to inspect a science department, a special needs department or whatever, those people must have skills which make them competent to undertake the task.
I turn to Amendment No. 13 tabled by my noble friend Lord Elton—
Lord Elton: My attention has only just been drawn to the fact that my amendment is grouped with Amendment No. 5. The point which my amendment seeks to make is simple and quite different and I wonder whether Members of the Committee will ungroup it.
Baroness Blatch: I am happy for it to be dealt with separately. I hope that in the light of the explanation that I have given Amendment No. 5 will not be pressed.
Baroness David: Perhaps I may point out to the noble Lord, Lord Elton, that the grouping was nothing to do with me. The noble Baroness suggested that the groupings were our fault, but that is not so. I am certain that it is open to the Government to disapprove of the groupings and to choose to have amendments ungrouped if necessary.
Lord Elton: The fault is entirely mine for not having spotted that my amendment was caught up in the group. That was my job and I am afraid that I did not do it.
Baroness David: I thank the noble Baronesses who have supported me. I listened carefully to the criticisms and to the Minister's speech. I should like to read carefully what she said and consider whether I wish to return on Report with an amendment with the same wording or slightly different wording. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord Elton Lord Elton moved Amendment No. 6:
Page 1, line 20, leave out from ("by") to end of line 21 and insert ("a resolution of both Houses of Parliament.").
The noble Lord said: In moving Amendment No. 6, which is a probing amendment, I wish to speak also to Amendment No. 12. Members of the Committee are exercised about the independence of the chief inspector and have given some time to the power of direction of the Secretary of State, which was rightly decided not to be a matter of substance. However, what is a matter of substance is the security of tenure.
When I was a Minister in Her Majesty's Government my department gave a new status to Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Prisons. The drafting which achieved his independence was more elaborate than that proposed in my amendment, but it had the same result. It was to the effect that the removal of the chief inspector should be by a resolution of both Houses of Parliament.
Will my noble friend say on whose advice Her Majesty will dismiss the chief inspector as is now proposed in the Bill? The fact that dismissal is by Her Majesty provides no security; it is whose advice Her Majesty takes, and on what occasion, which provides the security. I should be obliged if my noble friend could explain that to the Committee.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: I hope that my noble friend will not accept the amendment. It would introduce an elaborate and cumbrous procedure. Equally, it would have a great disadvantage if the necessity to change the appointment arose during the parliamentary recess. Let us suppose, for example, that this matter

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arose at the end of July. The Government would be powerless to do anything until Parliament returned in October. Therefore, that would be a most inconvenient arrangement.
Moreover, to take up the time of Parliament on a personal issue of this kind is perhaps difficult to justify. On the other hand, if the Minister—and this is what the words in the Bill really mean—were wrongly to remove the incumbent of that office, that Minister would be answerable to Parliament in the ordinary way as soon as Parliament returned in October. Therefore, I hope that my noble friend will not press the amendment, and if he does, I hope that my noble friend Lady Blatch will resist it.
Lord Elton: I obviously failed to make clear that this is a probing amendment.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: I hope that the probe will turn out to be blunt.
Baroness Blatch: As regards Amendment No. 13, I have sympathy with my noble friend's desire to place control over the numbers of HMCI.
Lord Elton: I did not speak to Amendment No. 13. I believe it would be quicker to take that amendment separately.
Baroness Blatch: I am sorry. I misheard my noble friend. As regards Amendments Nos. 6 and 12, my noble friend is interested in the powers to remove the chief inspectors from office. Perhaps I may say at the outset that we hope and believe that those powers will not be needed. The Government will naturally try to find the best people to fill the two positions of chief inspector, and we have every confidence that good appointments will be made. However, it would be irresponsible not to make provision for the remote possibility that someone might have to be removed because he is no longer capable of doing the job through incapacity, or that he should not be allowed to continue to do the job because of misconduct. It is important to have that longstop power in the public interest.
I recognise that my noble friend has in his suggested amendments followed the precedent adopted to permit the removal from office of a judge. However, I must say that the cases are not really comparable. The duties of a judge are quite different from those of HMCI, and I cannot accept that what applies to the one must automatically be appropriate to the other. In the case of the chief inspectors, it will be for the relevant Secretary of State to put the case to the Privy Council, which will determine whether dismissal is justified, and recommend appropriately to Her Majesty.
I have stressed already that I expect the powers in these subsections to be used very rarely, if at all. Members of the Committee will notice that the power to remove from office is not absolute. It is dependent upon incapacity or misconduct. It is on that basis that the Privy Council would accept advice and judge whether the decision was appropriate on that basis. That is an extremely powerful protection for HMCI.
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It provides an adequate safeguard against his removal on political grounds. Of course, if there were any suspicion in the mind of the chief inspector that he was being dismissed on grounds other than those of incapacity or misconduct, he could call for a judicial review.
Lord Callaghan of Cardiff: As regards the Privy Council, is it more than a formality which the noble Baroness proposes? Normally a meeting of the Privy Council consists of Members of Her Majesty's Government who ratify what is placed before Her Majesty. Is there to be set up a special tribunal of the Privy Council? Is the matter to go to the Clerk of the Privy Council who will adjudicate? What form will that reference to the Privy Council take?
Baroness Blatch: I should be decidedly disturbed if I thought that a recommendation to the Privy Council to dismiss HMCI of either Wales or England were treated in such a cursory manner. I would regard that as being extremely serious business for the Privy Council. It would be for the Privy Council to make the recommendation for dismissal. In those circumstances, I regard it as a matter which should be treated extremely seriously. First, a judgment would have to be made as to whether the Secretary of State's advice to the Privy Council was consistent with dismissal on the grounds of incapacity or misconduct. On that basis, the recommendation would either be rejected or accepted. I would expect it to be rather more than a rubber stamping exercise.
Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone: I wonder whether we have this matter straight. First, the grounds for removal are adequate—in my opinion, at least. They are exactly the same grounds as are provided under the Courts Act to every circuit judge on the circuit judge Bench. I should have thought that to give a greater degree of security of tenure than that would be an anomaly. My noble friend Lord Elton says that this is a probing amendment, and therefore I do not criticise its drafting. However, the resolution of both Houses is usually reserved to High Court judges or above.
I ask my noble friend on the Front Bench about this: I am not sure whether my noble friend is right to say that a Privy Council recommendation approved by Her Majesty, otherwise it would not be a Privy Council recommendation, is subject to judicial review. I should like to be reassured about that. I shall not be happy until I receive such a reassurance.
If the chief inspector were subject to dismissal by the Minister, he would be in the same position as is the Lord Chancellor in respect of a circuit judge. He is subject to judicial review, although I have never been judicially reviewed on that ground.
I am not happy because a decision of the Privy Council, as those Members of this Committee who have attended meetings of the Privy Council will be aware, is completed when Her Majesty actually utters the word "approved" to a draft order in council. I am not sure that anything in respect of which Her Majesty has uttered that sacred word would necessarily be

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subject to judicial review. I wonder whether my noble friend on the Front Bench has taken proper legal advice about that.
Baroness Blatch: I rise with great hesitation to reply to my noble and learned friend. However, I understand that my description of what happens is correct. It seems inconceivable but we are talking about most exceptional circumstances. It seems inconceivable but a situation may arise in which the Privy Council accepts advice from the Secretary of State that the dismissal was on grounds of either incapacity or misconduct; but the chief inspector still believes that he is being dismissed, for example, on political grounds and still feels aggrieved. I understand that it is possible for the aggrieved chief inspector to seek a judicial judgment about whether his dismissal was on the grounds of incapacity or misconduct.
Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone: I hope that my noble friend will take this matter further. It is only a question of machinery. There is no difference of principle between my noble friend and myself. If this were the decision of the Minister, I should be in no doubt but that judicial review would be available on precisely the grounds that she says. The words "misconduct or incapacity" have been judicially determined at various times in the past century. It is clear that a Minister, who has an executive power, can be judicially reviewed under the judicial review procedure. However, I very much doubt whether it is constitutional for anything to which Her Majesty has uttered the word "approved" in the Privy Council to be subject to the same procedure. I have never heard of the Queen, in her own courts, being judicially reviewed.
Baroness Blatch: I give an absolute assurance to the Committee that I shall continue to seek advice on this point. One must assume that if the situation reaches the stage at which a recommendation has been made, first, to the Privy Council and, secondly, to Her Majesty to approve the dismissal of the chief inspector, that a number of the stages of the process have already been undergone. It is my understanding—and I shall correct it at a later stage if I am wrong—that it would be for the aggrieved chief inspector to apply to the courts. It would then be for the courts to decide as to whether a judicial review is appropriate. However, I bow to the greater knowledge of my noble and learned friend and I shall return again to this matter.
Lord Callaghan of Cardiff: I am glad to hear what the noble Baroness has said. I think that the idea of having a resolution of both Houses of Parliament is over-egging the pudding. On the other hand, it would be perfectly proper for the procedure of the Privy Council to take place on the recommendation of the Secretary of State, who would be the initiator of the enterprise and would make his recommendation to the Privy Council on the question of misconduct or incapacity. He is certainly parti pris here. One thing about which I should like to be satisfied is whether, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham, says,
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there would be a right of judicial review or what intermediate procedures there would be between the Secretary of State initiating such procedure and Her Majesty giving her approval. If the noble Baroness were to deal with that at Report stage, I think we would all be a little clearer.
Baroness Blatch: I give the noble Lord an absolute assurance that I will follow up the point he makes.
Perhaps I may raise one other point that noble Lords may wish to think about between now and Report stage. One might argue that the government of the day could also be parti pris in coming before Parliament for approval. I am sure that what we all want, including my noble friend, is as impartial a judgment as possible reached on as objective a basis as possible. It should be based entirely on incapacity or misconduct. That is the decision which should be upheld at the end of the day. It is to that end that I shall think about the matter between now and Report stage.
Baroness Seear: Perhaps I may raise a smaller but purely practical point. What is the cost of judicial review in a last resort? Are there financial resources for it? It may sound all right but if it is going to cost the earth to have it, it is not a great reality.
Baroness Blatch: I cannot deal with that question specifically, except to say that I do not think it has ever been for Parliament to determine that, because it is a costly process, the individual should be denied the right to invoke the law where appropriate. The debate here is whether it is appropriate.
Lord Peston: The noble Lord, Lord Elton, has said that this is only a probing amendment and I should like to use it to probe another matter. Does the expression "Her Majesty does appear" mean that, if it was stated that the person had been removed by Her Majesty on the grounds of misconduct and someone were to ask a question either in this Chamber or in another place about why that person had been removed, in some sense it would be out of order because Her Majesty had decided it? A fortiori would it then be out of order to say that that decision should not have been taken? This is not quite the same as the "judicial review" point but it is relevant to the noble Lord's suggested amendment. I speak with no expertise but it seems to me there is a danger that we could be ruled out of order in asking why a particular person was dismissed. I do not necessarily expect an immediate answer but I believe the matter is worth exploring.
Baroness Blatch: It may not be appropriate for me to answer that point specifically. If I am wrong I shall come back to the noble Lord. My understanding is that we concern ourselves here with mechanisms for doing things and vesting the appropriate authority in different people in different parts of the process to take decisions. I would not have thought it appropriate for either House to involve itself in the personal circumstances of a dismissal; we should be making sure that the system for dealing with such matters is appropriate.
6.15 p.m.
Lord Glenamara: Surely, my noble friend Lord Callaghan was right when he stated that to say a chief inspector could be removed from office only by the Queen in Council was no safeguard against a political dismissal. As the noble Baroness knows, the Privy Council agenda consists of items sent in by government departments. Her Majesty says either "Approved" or "Referred" on the advice of the Government. They are purely political decisions in the Privy Council. What the noble Lord, Lord Elton, is proposing is that it should come to Parliament. I quite agree with the noble Baroness that there are circumstances in which it would be undesirable to discuss in Parliament the reasons for dismissing an inspector, but let us not deceive ourselves by the words "removed by the Queen in Council". This is no safeguard against a political dismissal.
Baroness Blatch: I have given an absolute assurance to the Committee that I shall continue to take advice on the subject and try to safeguard the objectives of the noble Lord's amendment which are that any chief inspector who is subject to what is a very extreme provision should be dealt with objectively and in such a way that would have the confidence of the whole House. I shall come back at the next stage and report on the matter.
Lord Harmar-Nicholls: As so often happens, we have started to deviate from the point on the agenda. But since the question has been asked, I would have thought there was nothing that could stop anybody in Parliament asking a question about anything. Kings have been removed because they have tried to interfere with Parliament. I imagine we would not want to go back to that situation.
Lord Elton: In the interval between this and the next stage my noble friend and I will doubtless be thinking about it. My noble and learned friend has usefully focused my concern about the proper protection of this post against improper dismissal. My noble friend will no doubt come back to something else, or I shall, at the next stage. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 1 agreed to.
Clause 5 [Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Schools in Wales]:
[Amendments Nos. 7 to 12 not moved.]
Clause 5 agreed to.
Schedule 1 [Her Majesty's Chief Inspectors]:
Lord Elton Lord Elton moved Amendment No. 13:
Page 16, line 5, leave out ("the Treasury as to numbers and") and insert ("the Secretary of State as to numbers and the Treasury as to").
The noble Lord said: We now come to the often heralded and simple amendment which is designed simply to elicit from Her Majesty's Government the means of funding and control of the inspectorate. The Bill says that the Treasury will approve the numbers of the inspectorate and the terms and conditions of service. The Treasury already has a very powerful influence over all departments. It occurred to me that
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this department, though independent, was much closer to the Secretary of State for Education than to the Treasury when it came to the determination of policy, and it might be in that department that the appropriate amount of money agreed with the Treasury ought to be allocated to different purposes. Therefore, the Treasury might not be the best judge as to the numbers of the inspectorate though it certainly would have a say about terms and conditions of service. This goes back to the question of the Vote out of which the service will be paid for and which Minister will be striving to see that that Vote is adequate in the PES round. I beg to move.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: I do not know whether this is one of the probes of the noble Lord, Lord Elton. It is also an amendment which is frequently moved on any number of Bills but normally from the other side of the Chamber. The control of the size of the public service is an issue often raised by noble Lords opposite. In my view, Treasury control of numbers is a great safeguard as to the size of the public service. To undermine Treasury control of numbers in one respect would not only be a bad precedent in itself but would be unsound in principle. One department must be finally responsible for the size of the public service and therefore for its cost. That has always been the Treasury. In my two terms of service in that department I frequently had to deal with such matters, and I hope I dealt with them fairly and properly. To remove that power would be an extremely bad precedent and, I believe, contrary to the efficient working of the organisation about which we are concerned in the Bill. Therefore, I hope that my noble friend the Minister will resist this with her habitual determination and courage.
Lord Peston: I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, about the paramount importance of Treasury control. However, within the spirit of what this Government have been trying to do it may be more appropriate for the chief inspector to be given a budget and then told to do what he likes with it in the interests of the body he had in mind. That would be just as good a method of Treasury control as that suggested by the amendment.
Either the noble Baroness, Lady Blatch, or her noble friend Lady Denton mentioned earlier, when we were discussing recruitment to the post, analogies like the Director General of Fair Trading. I thought that was a good analogy. I should like to believe that the Chief Inspector of Schools would be as distinguished and powerful a figure as the Director General of Fair Trading. However, if we look at the underpinning of the Office of Fair Trading, does a similar provision apply to that? In other words, is the Director General of Fair Trading specifically told that he may appoint a certain number of members of staff with the approval of the Treasury?
The analogy was a good one. I would be more convinced in this case if that was the rule, and I therefore ask that question. In talking of regulators, where a similar point applies, I should be interested to know whether they are subject to Treasury control in this same detailed way. That is not to detract from

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Treasury control per se; it is to ask specifically about the nature of Treasury control because one notices the precise details—numbers and terms of conditions of service and so on. I would therefore be reassured, and no doubt so would the noble Lord, Lord Elton, if we were told that that was the normal practice.
Baroness Blatch: I believe that I can help on Amendment No. 13. I have sympathy with my noble friend's desire to place control over the numbers of HMCI's support staff in the hands of the Secretary of State rather than those of the Treasury. However, perhaps I can explain the position to my noble friend.
In this Bill we are setting up two non-ministerial government departments, one in England and one in Wales. That point was well made by the noble Baroness, Lady White, when she referred to the statement made by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Wales.
The chief inspectors will head their own departments, and will need their own administrative and technical support staff in addition to their professional inspection staff. This paragraph of Schedule 1 will require them to negotiate their case for support staff direct with the Treasury. In making their case, they will set out in detail their functions and what they need to discharge them. In practice, my noble friend's amendment would have the effect of adding an extra layer to the control over numbers. It would not remove the Treasury from the picture because it would still play a role through the public expenditure survey and the estimates procedure.
That point was well made by my noble friend. If one takes it to its logical conclusion it would be an adjunct to another department. It would come through the Department of Education and Science and then through the PES round and my noble friend would probably argue that it is better that it should have its own straight line to the Treasury.
Her Majesty's Chief Inspector will have more control than HMI has hitherto had over its staffing and resources. The HMCIs will be their own department's accounting officer. They will also be able to say in their annual report and elsewhere if their functions are at risk from lack of staff or resources.
With regard to the question posed by the noble Lord, Lord Peston, first, I do not have the specific information and, secondly, it is not relevant now that I have established that it is a separate department with a straight line to the Treasury for resources and that it has the ability and power to make its own case for resources.
Lord Elton: I am grateful to my noble friend who reassures me that this is the way in which all non-ministerial departments are controlled. I am not familiar with them and so that is news to me. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Baroness Seear Baroness Seear moved Amendment No. 14:
Page 16, line 10, after ("persons") insert (", not fewer than 380,").
The noble Baroness said: The Bill suggests that there is to be a drastic reduction in the number of
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inspectors from 480 to 175. We wish to ensure that that does not happen and are proposing instead that there should be no fewer than 380. I beg to move.
Baroness Blackstone: In speaking to this group of amendments I particularly want to focus on Amendments Nos. 36 and 62. Their aim is to secure high standards in the longer term. The question we must ask is whether Her Majesty's Chief Inspectors will have sufficient numbers of staff to undertake school inspections indefinitely and to maintain their tradition of high standards.
Without continuing firsthand experience of inspections it would become increasingly difficult to guide and train new registered inspectors. Monitoring the activities of registered inspectors in the conduct of their inspections would be a poor substitute for extensive firsthand experience undertaken by Her Majesty's Inspectorate. Not only would guidance and training be difficult, but also it would be difficult to give well-based advice to Ministers. For example, it would be difficult to keep in touch with the implementation of the national curriculum and with the new forms of assessment. We must recognise that there is still a long way to go in implementing the schemes of assessment that follow on from the Education Reform Act 1988. It would be hard to assess the development of more practical and vocational work in the top ends of our secondary schools to which Ministers are wedded. But again, it is an early stage of development. Perhaps of the greatest importance is that it would be difficult to monitor the new system of school-based training of teachers.
I can give countless other examples and illustrations of why it is important that the national inspectorate continues in the long term to carry out firsthand inspections of schools. But the most important reason is that the inspectors are universally recognised to be the best prepared and best equipped to undertake such work. They should be doing it on a considerable scale to provide models of good practice for registered inspectors.
If it is accepted that we wish the national inspectorate to continue carrying out its inspections at the chalk face rather than simply monitoring other people carrying out inspections, we shall need at least 380 inspectors. That is the figure mentioned in Amendment No. 14.
Lord Renfrew of Kaimsthorn: I have a great deal of sympathy with the intention behind the amendment and agree with almost everything that the noble Baroness said. However, I doubt the wisdom of including in the Bill a specific figure below which one would not fall. That is ultimately an administrative decision and for that reason I am doubtful about the amendment.
However, I should like to take the opportunity of saying that I am embarrassed on this side of the Chamber that there are those—certainly not those opposite, or at least they have not said so—who would perhaps associate some on this side of the Chamber with some of the more severe criticisms made of the inspectorate. Nobody has thought to link us but,

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notwithstanding, let me take the opportunity of deprecating an article written in the Daily Telegraph on 9th December last headed,
"How H.M. Ideologues have laid waste school education".
It is signed by a lady who claims to be the deputy director of the Centre for Policy Studies and goes on to speak in intemperate language of the inspectorate. Most of us on this side of the Chamber have a high regard for the work of the inspectorate and would not wish to make such criticisms. I should like to make that point clear.
At the same time it is not illogical for us to say that under the arrangements provided there will be some diminution in the numbers of inspectors. Ultimately, if one is setting up a new inspection system through registered inspectors of the kind proposed which will perhaps require thousands of extra inspectors, one has a choice. One can either incorporate those persons within a much enlarged inspectorate—that is not what the Opposition are proposing but it is a relevant issue—which would thereby become a large monolithic body, or one can accept the logic that some diminution in the numbers of inspectors is possible. That is logical but does not in itself imply criticism of the way that the inspectorate operates.
For that reason I agree with what the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, was saying. It is important that the inspectorate should continue to conduct its own inspections, which is provided for in the Bill. That will not be the main vehicle for inspections but there will be that provision. I agree with most of the sentiments which she has expressed. However, I doubt the wisdom of putting into the Bill a figure such as not falling below 380. That is an administrative matter and not appropriate to insert in the Bill.
6.30 p.m.
Lord Rippon of Hexham: I am not in any position to express a view about numbers. I know that many people believe that the Government propose too severe a cut. I am a little concerned with the relationship between the inspectors and the local education authority. I believe that my noble friend Lord Beloff raised this point at Second Reading as regards the responsibilities of the local education authority. As I understand it, every local education authority has a direct liaison at the present time with an inspector and they look into all matters. The inspector makes an annual report. I further understand that normally the inspector and the chief inspector of the local education authority meet regularly to consider a whole range of issues relating to the schools.
I would like an assurance from the Minister that nothing which is done will undermine what seems to be a very satisfactory arrangement at the present time carried out by a service—I agree with my noble friend—which has a very high reputation.
Lord Ritchie of Dundee: The words of the two Members of the Committee opposite give me an opportunity to say something which I meant to say when we were discussing the first amendment. The
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problem could have been solved by vastly increasing the size of Her Majesty's Inspectorate to about 2,000, with its expertise. The noble Lord, Lord Rippon, also adverted to the same problem.
I also wanted to say that we should build on what already exists. It is awful to be seen decimating the present set-up when a very good system is being built up between the HMI and the local education authorities. The standards of all the local education authorities could be brought up to the standard of East Sussex in due course. That is not beyond the bounds of possibility. The proposal of the Government is going to take time, and probably longer than I have suggested.
Lord Peston: Let me reassure the noble Lord, Lord Renfrew, that it did not occur to me that most Members of the Committee opposite had a low view of the inspectorate. On the contrary, I believed that most Members who have experience in these matters thought that the inspectorate was good. Perhaps the noble Lord will recall what underlay my speech at Second Reading. It was to the effect that if one accepts that position, can it be explained why the Bill is needed in this form?
The Government, in the person of the noble Baroness, refused to come out to play with me on that issue. She said that my question was rhetorical and not to be answered. However, I still seek the answer. If the inspectorate is as good as Members of the Committee opposite say, and they are right, I can see room for change following the Audit Commission report. But I cannot see how one gets from that position to this Bill. Therefore I am not accusing them of ideology but of illogicality.
Lord Renfrew of Kaimsthorn: I am not sure whether I am supposed to rise to the bait. It is a simple point. We greatly admire the inspectorate but we doubt whether an appropriate solution to the problem of inspection is to increase the inspectorate by about 3,000, multiplied by a factor of almost 10. That would make it a very different organisation.
Lord Peston: The noble Lord and I are in agreement for the second time. I hope that I do not ruin his career on that side of the Chamber. I certainly do not believe in increasing the size of the inspectorate in that way. There are better ways of deploying the inspectorate and some of those ways would not be far from the lines along which the Government are seeking to go. In other words, we are talking about the division of labour, who would do which job and so forth.
The point of this amendment which stands in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, and myself and the amendment standing in the name of my noble friend is to try to get nearer to a proper balance on the desirable size of Her Majesty's Inspectorate and what it does and the desirable size for whatever other functions are necessary. I know that the noble Lord, Lord Renfrew, has tabled an amendment which will be dealt with in due course and which will also throw some light on these matters.

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That is the logic of our position. Overall, we are saying that if one looks closely at Amendment No. 36, which concerns the task, essentially what we are saying is that the numbers should correspond to that task. At this point I become uneasy because all I know about numbers relates to the secret document which has been leaked. I do not care to debate on the basis of leaked documents. I take seriously the fact that no case has been made for keeping the document secret. I would like to have seen it because I am told that it contains the analysis which leads to the number 380.
I am not an expert and I do not know whether 380 is the right number. I read my newspapers and they tell me that that is the number in the document. If I could read it I might discover that the document is no good. If I could read the document I would at least know where I stood. I am in agreement with the noble Lord, Lord Renfrew. I do not regard it as all that sensible to include a precise number, but that is the easiest way to look at the problem. It is the easiest way to discover what lies behind what the Government are doing, which is what I am concerned about. The noble Lord, Lord Renfrew, may say that 380, 400 or 360 do not appeal to him. I am saying there should be more than the number we are told. I would like a proper underpinning of a number set within the Bill, which is how my noble friend's Amendment No. 36 comes into the picture.
I do not believe that there is a great deal between us, but unfortunately the Government insist on creating a divide between us because they refuse to respond to some of the suggestions being made. We end up with rows which are always avoidable in this area if only one could persuade the Government of that. That is the origin of these amendments. I reiterate that I do not in any sense doubt the bona fides of Members of the Committee on the other side of the Chamber on this subject. I take it for granted that they are at least as concerned with Her Majesty's Inspectorate as I and my noble friends are.
Viscount Eccles: There are two quite different functions: one is inspecting schools, and that has broken down. There were only 150 last year. Even in the time of my noble friend Lord Joseph when he tried to revive them, it was said that there should not be a school inspection more often than once in 10 years. What was being done was much more useful. Advice was being given on particular troubles. One sent out the inspectors and said that there was something wrong with a particular department which should be looked at. The advice received was extremely good.
Now there is a suggested commitment of 6,000 inspections a year. Will it be the case that the rump of the old inspectorate will no longer inspect anything— will no longer go out and do what they do so well, which is to bring back expert news about the schools? They will spend their time trying to gather together a large number of inspectors —I cannot say how many but some thousands—in order to carry out 6,000 inspections a year. In my view that is an impossible task.
Baroness Blatch: I believe that we are still in danger of confusing the number of HMIs with the number of
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registered inspectors who will be overseen by the HMI. I can assure my noble friend Lord Eccles that the valuable work that he describes will continue. HMI will continue to inspect at first hand and at least three-quarters of its manpower will do so under the new arrangements, in addition to monitoring the new inspections. In other words, it will have a monitoring role for the registered inspectors but will also continue with its dipsticking into schools on an ad hoc, subject-by-subject or school-by-school basis. That very valuable work will continue.
The precise way in which Her Majesty's Chief Inspectors of Schools arrange their work must be a matter for them. I am sure that they will ensure that they have adequate information about the local education authorities as well as about the schools with which they are involved. They will also be dealing with local education authority inspectors who will apply, as anyone else can apply, for registration under the Bill. Therefore the close relationship which the noble Lord, Lord Ritchie, referred to concerning professional matters will be strengthened.
I say to the noble Lord, Lord Peston, that what we believe we are doing by this Bill is recognising, in the way that my noble friend Lord Renfrew has done, the work of HMI. We believe that it should be strengthened and given independence to do a professional job. The local education authorities for their part will have their share of the 6,000 a year reports on which they can base their interest.
Perhaps I may say to my noble friend Lord Rippon that LEAs will retain their responsibility for going into schools if they have good reason to be concerned about the effective, efficient delivery of education. But of course they will now have an independent inspectorate providing them with a great deal of information which will eliminate their need to do so. That will certainly eliminate the number of times where it will be necessary to do so out of real concern.
I should like to say to the noble Lord, Lord Ritchie, that one simply cannot take what is already there and build on it in the way that he suggests. First, one of the consequences would be the unbelievable increase in numbers within the system as it is at the moment. Secondly, remembering how many local authorities fall very far short of the authority of East Sussex, to which he referred, to bring them all into line and to make them deliver would involve the highest possible degree of prescription—and it would not be independent. We believe that independence of the inspectorate is important. We also believe that we should not build on a system that has not worked, but take HMI and create a system that does work.
I shall return now to the amendment. This particular paragraph relates to the appointment by HMCI of inspectors other than HMI to assist them in their inspection work. Such people are not appointed through the Order in Council procedure provided for in Clause 1(2). Section 77(2) of the Education Act 1944 gave the Secretary of State power to authorise persons to assist Her Majesty's Inspectorate in their inspections. Under these provisions, additional or occasional inspectors have been brought in for shorter or longer periods to provide particular expertise which

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the existing complement of HMI have lacked, to widen their own experience, even on occasion, to fill gaps caused by extended illness. This paragraph of Schedule 1 simply allows for these arrangements to continue under the chief inspector.
These appointments have never been more than a handful of people at a time. They have provided useful additional flexibility; but the intention has never been to add them permanently to Her Majesty's Inspectorate staff. So if the noble Baroness hopes to require a minimum of 380 HMI, appointed through the Order in Council procedure in Clause 1, this amendment does not achieve that.
To return to the question of numbers. Noble Lords opposite are still basing their estimate on misleading newspaper reports of leaked documents rather than on the information and explanations given in another place. The figure of 380 HMI does not take account of the new position with regard to inspections in further and higher education, which was explained when your Lordships considered the Further and Higher Education Bill recently. One hundred and forty of the present 480 HMI inspect further and higher education. In future, responsibility for inspection of further and higher education and of sixth form colleges will transfer to the funding councils. No doubt a number of Her Majesty's Inspectors will transfer to those councils, but that is a matter for them. What is certain, is that these inspectors should not be part of the calculation of the numbers of Her Majesty's Inspectors needed in future for schools. Taking 140 from 480 already brings us below the 380 that noble Lords opposite claim are needed as the absolute minimum for schools inspection.
Nor does the figure of 380 take account of the fact that we are setting up entirely new inspection arrangements that will provide for a vast increase in the numbers of schools inspected each year. We have to look at what HMI will be needed to do in future when they will be running a much improved inspection system which will not only produce published reports for parents, but will also produce a huge amount of high quality evidence. Six thousand reports a year will be produced in standard form. These will feed into HMI's own judgments about the standards and quality of education in our schools. It is impossible to argue that HMI inspection effort will also be needed at exactly the same level as now.
As said in our debate at Second Reading, our preliminary judgment about the future complement of HMI is based on advice from the senior chief inspector on that question—because he is best able to advise on the practicalities. The senior chief inspector and we have looked at the way in which the new arrangements will operate in steady state, and the functions which will need to be carried out by HMI. I stress that these are estimates and will have to be subjected to detailed scrutiny once the chief inspectors are in post and have decided how they intend to operate. The figure of 175 is not set for all time.
Once the initial rush of registration and training is over, the system will require the full-time equivalent of around 40 inspectors for monitoring the work of
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registered inspectors. We are satisfied that real and effective monitoring is quite possible with that number. We are not intending that HMI should go in with every inspection. That would be totally wasteful and unnecessary. But HMI would, for example, be able to accompany each registered inspector on an inspection at least once a year.
Our motive is not to economise. Where HMI are needed for specific tasks, they will be there in sufficient numbers. But many aspects of HMI's work at present—however described—in fact amount to the gathering of intelligence to inform advice to the Secretary of State. That intelligence gathering in future will be largely the function of the army of registered inspectors and their teams, so that area of HMI activity which has provided the baseline of information about the system in the past, will be significantly reduced in future.
However, HMI will not be any the less informed. Under the Bill, the chief inspector has specific duties to keep the whole school system under review and to provide advice as requested or as they think fit on any aspect of it. About three-quarters of the inspectorate will be available to carry out the chief inspector's own inspection programme, which will allow around 3,000 schools to be visited and some 30,000 classes to be observed by the inspectorate themselves. So the inspectorate will have a large stake in the expanded programme of inspection and that will provide an important check against the findings of the registered inspectors.
The chief inspector's own inspection evidence will also supplement the registered inspectors' work to enable HMI to continue to write reports and publications on particular aspects of educational provision, will contribute to the evidence for the annual report, and will underpin advice to the Secretary of State. All that can be managed, and managed effectively, within the figures we have suggested.
I turn now to Amendments Nos. 36 and 62 tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone. With these amendments we are back to telling the independent chief inspectors how to carry out their job. There is no need for these amendments to give the chief inspector powers to carry out inspections for the purposes specified. They have unrestricted powers of inspection under Clauses 3 and 7 and can exercise them in pursuit of any of their statutory functions. I am sure they will do so as necessary.
Since the chief inspectors have the power to carry out inspections to establish good practice, I can see no point in giving them, as these amendments would, an additional duty on the face of the Bill to use that power as they see fit. I expect that the inspectorate will in practice continue as now to develop good practice in inspection, while at the same time collecting evidence about the school system. That will make for the best use of their time. They will also be accompanying registered inspectors to look at how they do their work. That is specifically catered for in Clauses 3 and 7. Such monitoring activity may also lead them to offer further advice on standards or good inspection practice.

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All this useful activity is perfectly possible under the Bill as drafted. I think we can allow the inspectorate to carry out all their work in as professional a way as possible and when necessary, without further words in the Bill to remind them of their powers. I hope the amendments will not be pressed.
Baroness Seear: I thank the Minister for that reply. I apologise to the Committee if I was caught on the wrong foot when the amendment was called. I do not think that the point has been fully met. There is nothing particularly sacred about the figure of 380. But we on these Benches are very anxious that at this time of radical change in education, and with the universal desire in the country to raise the level of education—with so much experimentation in curriculum and teacher training going on—it is vitally important that the Secretary of State should get the best possible advice. Nobody imagines that the Government will have got everything right straight away. That would be absurd. We need to be convinced, and so far we are not, that 175 HMI will be able to do that job.
The noble Baroness said that the inspectorate will get reports from the registered inspectors. When it comes to getting information about, and an insight into, what is going on in schools in order to inform the Secretary of State, it is not the same thing to get it at second hand. Those inspectors, those top grade people, need to be able to keep their feet in the trough and be continuously in touch. That is the only way one can know. Those who have done work of this kind know that unless one goes back to the grass roots to find out what is happening one becomes out of date and one's advice is not as good as it ought to be.
The noble Baroness is relying on second-hand information coming to the inspectors which will govern what those in HMI say to the Secretary of State. In relying on those reports from the registered inspectors there are two snags. First, it is not the same as getting one's own information. It never can be. Secondly, we are not yet convinced—and we remain to be convinced—that the people recruited will have the insight, sensitivity and knowledge to be able to put their finger on what needs to be done in educational development.
That is the core point. That is what has to be passed on to the Secretary of State. The reports to the Secretary of State can only be as good as the advice that comes from the registered inspectors. We have yet to be convinced that the people who come forward as registered inspectors will be an adequate substitute for or be able to do the same kind of job as the existing high quality inspectors. Therefore the quality of the advice is bound to fall.
I do not propose to press the amendment today but I ask the noble Baroness to think about these points because they are crucial. I rather agree with the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, on the way the inspectors could get that information. Very often they would get it better by looking at a particular problem area in a school than by carrying out a full-dress inspection. They need that day-to-day or at least month-to-month contact. If the noble Baroness can come back at a later
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stage to say that she has thought about and appreciates these points and has some suggestions to make about them, that would be of great help. At the moment I wish to withdraw the amendment. Perhaps we can talk about it between now and Report stage. Otherwise we shall have to come back with a modification of the present amendment. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Blatch: Before the noble Baroness sits down, I can give her an assurance that I shall go on thinking about all these amendments between now and Report stage and as the Bill progresses through the House. I said that about three-quarters of the inspectorate will be available to carry out their own inspection programme in addition to the monitoring of the 6,000 reports a year. So they will be in receipt of all that information. They will also do some accompanying of registered inspectors in the course of that work. They will also visit around 3,000 schools and observe about 30,000 classes in the course of a year. That will be very valuable additional work which will provide the kind of information for which I think the noble Baroness is looking.
Baroness Seear: Does the noble Baroness really think that all those things can be done in addition to selecting, training and supervising the inspectors? It seems very optimistic to think that they will be able to spend that amount of time in the schools.
The Lord Bishop of Guildford: I wonder whether the noble Baroness, Lady Blatch, can clarify a point for me. I was trying hard to keep up with her fast-moving case. I understood her to say that three-quarters of the inspectorate would be available to do their own inspections. I understand that, but they have only a right to inspect; they have no duty to do it. The noble Baroness knows that three-quarters of the inspectorate will be available to do inspections. She has also assured the Committee that the inspectorate will be fully independent and therefore will make its own decisions. I am not quite sure that it is on the face of the Bill that three-quarters of the inspectorate will be doing inspections. I am a little confused as to how these two things fit together.
Lord Elton: Before my noble friend replies, I wonder whether we can be put into a clearer position as to where we have reached. I thought that the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, had withdrawn the amendment. I thought that my noble friend the Minister intervened, fictionally, but really, before the noble Baroness sat down. I thought that the end of her intervention then concluded the matter and that we were into the next amendment. I do not want to be difficult but I think we are spending too long on this matter.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Alport): The noble Lord is quite correct. I gave the noble Baroness the chance to comment on the speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Seear. I should have thought that it was now time to ask the Committee whether the amendment may be withdrawn.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord Peston Lord Peston moved Amendment No. 15:
Page 16, line 22, at end insert ("within nationally determined Civil Service pay scales and conditions of service agreements.").
The noble Lord said: This amendment is grouped with Amendments Nos. 16 to 19. Having looked at the groupings, noble Lords will notice that Amendment No. 17 is incompatible with Amendments Nos. 18 and 19. I shall proceed as if Amendment No. 17 were not on the Marshalled List, because Amendment No. 17 leaves out lines 23 to 35 and Amendments Nos. 18 and 19 discuss matters in that part of the Bill. I shall therefore refer to Amendments Nos. 15 and 16 and 18 and 19.
With regard to Amendments Nos. 15 and 16, I think I now need some clarification which originally I did not need. I had thought that Her Majesty's chief inspectors would be civil servants. My noble friend Lady White read a letter from the Secretary of State for Wales which also seemed to suggest that Her Majesty's chief inspectors would be civil servants. However, the noble Baroness, Lady Denton, when replying for the Government on the question of competition for the post, seemed to imply that Her Majesty's chief inspectors would not be civil servants. If it is the case that from now on Her Majesty's chief inspectors will not be civil servants, to some extent Amendments Nos. 15 and 16 are easily dealt with because the posts then become completely irrelevant. There is no point in arguing that the posts should be determined by Civil Service payscales and so on if one is talking about someone who is not a civil servant. Am I correct in assuming that from now on Her Majesty's chief inspectors will be civil servants?
I do not want to enlarge on that but the analogy was used in regard to the Director General of Fair Trading. It had not occurred to me that the Director General of Fair Trading is a civil servant. Again, I could be wrong on that. Perhaps the Committee will bear with me a little longer. If the chief inspectors are civil servants, it follows that the various rules of appointment under the Civil Service, pay arrangements and so on will apply. That is what Amendments Nos. 15 and 16 provide. The noble Baroness may be able to deal with those very briefly indeed.
Amendments Nos. 18 and 19, although grouped, deal with a different matter. They relate to ceasing to hold office. I have a legal question. Does ceasing to hold office logically include removal from office as defined in Clause 1 (4) (c)? We discussed that some time ago. In other words, is one of the ways of ceasing to hold office being removed from office? I ask that question because, if the answer is yes, presumably the conditions under paragraph 3(3) of Schedule 1 will apply in the case of someone being removed from office and will be concerned with compensating him or her as well as whoever else it applies to. Is ceasing to hold office regarded within the meaning of the Bill and by the lawyers as including those who are removed from office?
My second point is a technical one. I am advised by my legal advisers that the expression,
"special circumstances which make it right that",
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has no meaning in law and therefore that the Bill is flawed in its drafting. One cannot write in that expression. What one has to write in is the expression "where appropriate".
I am anxious not to be caught in the crossfire between experts; namely, my experts who will tell me that I am right and those of the noble Baroness who will tell her that she is right. I put it to Members of the Committee that certainly the people I have consulted, who claim to know about such things, simply say that that piece of drafting is wrong. I can go no further than that because I have no expertise in the matter.
The purpose of Amendment No. 19 is, I believe, obvious. If someone ceases to hold office and if, where appropriate, the Secretary of State deems that that person should receive compensation, it seems to me—especially as we are now dealing with public funds—that it is entirely right that he should give a public explanation as to why a sum of money is being paid and why it is a precise sum, and not another sum, is being paid. The amendments fit together and in both cases they are extremely important in terms of good management of the public sector. I beg to move.
7 p.m.
Baroness Blatch: The amendments raise technical issues about the terms and conditions of service of the new chief inspector posts. I believe that the noble Lord, Lord Peston, wishes to treat the chief inspectors as civil servants—at least he asked for clarification in the matter.
Lord Peston: I was simply asking whether they are in fact civil servants. If they are not, we can dismiss that aspect of the matter with no trouble at all.
Baroness Blatch: I am grateful to the noble Lord. I believe that reference has already been made to them this afternoon as being Crown servants. The holders of such posts will be Crown servants. Their pay and conditions of service, including pension arrangements, will be determined in the same way as that of other Crown servants holding similar positions. In other words, my right honourable friends will determine, with the approval of the Treasury, what the chief inspectors should receive by way of remuneration, travelling and other allowances (including any pension or gratuity) and what the level of any pension contributions by them should be.
So far as concerns pensions arrangements, I understand that the chief inspectors would in principle be eligible to have their service in that post covered by the principle civil servants' pension scheme. That is a matter for my right honourable friend to determine in agreement with the Treasury. We do not need to put any more on the face of the Bill than appears in Schedule 1 paragraph 3 in relation to end of service grants and pension gratuity or other allowances.
In reply to the question about someone ceasing to hold office and what it means, I understand that it means "for any reason whatever". There is nothing sinister here. The provisions are standard provisions for Crown servants who hold office directly under the Crown and who are not simply advisers to Ministers as is the case with civil servants. Noble Lords need

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have no fear of any impropriety because decisions on such matters have to be agreed with the Treasury and will be subject to scrutiny by the Comptroller and Auditor General in the normal way.
I turn finally to the amendments of the noble Lord, Lord Peston, on compensation. I hope that we shall not spend too long on this aspect. As the Bill says, the provisions are intended for special circumstances. As I have already made clear, we hope that they will never have to be used; but, nevertheless, they remain necessary. I can understand that the noble Lord with his well-known penchant for figures would be interested to know how and why a particular sum of compensation - that is, should we ever come to that situation—was calculated. However, the noble Lord has overlooked some important points.
It would not be right to require public reporting to Parliament of amounts of compensation paid to individuals whose particular private circumstances have had some bearing on the figures arrived at; nor would it be helpful to government because figures given could be quoted against a government—indeed, any government—in any future negotiations and would, therefore, not be in the interests of the taxpayer. But, of course, the Secretary of State cannot act frivolously in such a situation. The Comptroller and Auditor General will automatically have access to the details of any compensation arrangements through his audit role. He will then be able to report to Parliament if he considers that there has been impropriety or extravagance. I think that that should provide quite as good a safeguard as that sought by the noble Lord. However, having said that, I am not sure whether I have gone far enough and sufficiently explained the matter to enable the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Peston: I thank the noble Baroness. I found her reply most helpful. However, she did not quite deal with the technical point that I raised. My lawyers have told me that the phrase in paragraph 3(3) of Schedule 1,
"special circumstances which make it right that"
is not correct terminology and so perhaps the Government should further consider the wording. But, on such a technical matter, I am perfectly happy for the noble Baroness to write to me and say, "Yes, it is correct" and I will then write back stating that it is not. We can carry on for a while along those lines. As I was advised that it was not a suitable form of words, I felt it only right to draw it to the attention of the Committee.
As regards the other matters, I do not agree. However, I can see both sides of the argument. If a sum of money is paid by way of compensation and it is public money, I believe that it should be in the public domain—embarrassing though that may be to whoever is involved. I do not think that public service pay-offs to people should be kept secret for whatever reason. But if the Government take a different view, that is a matter for them. My view is that the best way of controlling the use of any public money is to expose its use to the public. However, we can continue to
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disagree on that aspect. As I said, the noble Baroness's reply was helpful. In the circumstances, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendments 16 to 19 not moved.]
Schedule 1 agreed to.
Baroness Denton of Wakefield: I beg to move that the House be now resumed. In moving the Motion, perhaps I may suggest that the Committee stage of the Bill should begin again at five minutes past eight.
Moved, accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
House resumed.

Social Security (Mortgage Interest Payments) Bill
7.5 p.m.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Social Security (Lord Henley): My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time.
The purpose of this Bill is to provide for the direct payment to lenders of the mortgage interest component of income support. The House will recall that my right honourable friends, the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Secretary of State for Social Security, made Statements on 19th December 1991 in which they outlined measures to be taken both by government and mortgage lenders with the objective of reducing repossessions of property. I am sure that the House will agree that this is a worthwhile objective. Mortgage rescue schemes are an important element of this initiative so I am glad to see that some lenders have already announced schemes in an advanced state of preparation. I am sure that the House will welcome the developments. The Bill provides a vital complement to giving reassurance to people who might be at risk of losing their homes. Lenders have given assurances that they will not repossess where direct payments are made to cover the mortgage interest.
The Bill enables direct payment of the mortgage interest allowance in income support to be made to qualifying lenders. It extends existing arrangements which rely on suitable cases being referred to an adjudication officer who considers whether it is in the interests of the claimant for direct payments to be made. The identification of such cases has not been easy. However, as my right honourable friend, the Minister of State, announced in November, new procedures were introduced by the benefits agency at the end of last year to seek to ensure that those cases in mortgage arrears would be more readily identified. Those arrangements are a useful interim measure pending the introduction of the more comprehensive scheme embodied in the Bill which will, subject to the passage of the Bill and to the making of the necessary regulations, start from the end of April of this year.
I turn now to the content of the Bill. It will cover those income support claimants who have an amount for mortgage interest included in their income support

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assessment and who should therefore make the appropriate payments to qualifying lenders. The provisions of the Bill will cover all such claimants but regulations will specify the point at which direct payments are to be started. I hope that the House will agree that, as a significant proportion of unemployed claimants stay on benefit for fewer than 16 weeks, it would not be sensible to disturb their existing mortgage payment arrangements for a period of but a few weeks. After 16 weeks the income support calculation for claimants under 60 years of age includes 100 per cent. of the eligible mortgage interest. It is our intention to provide in regulations for direct payment to start once 100 per cent of the eligible interest is payable in income support. Regulations will also define what are termed relevant benefits from which deductions may be made.
I should make clear that by "qualifying lenders" we mean building societies, banks, insurance companies and other institutional lenders. Local authorities and certain other public bodies with home loan facilities will also be included. Most qualifying lenders are prescribed on the face of the Bill by generic title but provision for others, including some institutional and centralised lenders, and public bodies, will be made in regulations.
The arrangements will cause a significant increase in the administrative costs of the benefits agency which we intend should be met in part by qualifying lenders. We envisage this being achieved by means of a transaction charge levied on the lenders. I am glad to say that the Council of Mortgage Lenders has consented to such an arrangement.
This scheme is an important element in the response from the Government and the lending institutions to the problem of repossessions. It offers a significant and practical contribution to our efforts to increase the security of many people who might otherwise be at risk of losing their home. I have no hesitation in commending this Bill to your Lordships. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read a second time.—(Lord Henley.)
7.10 p.m.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: My Lords, I thank the Minister for his clear introduction of the Bill. Mortgage default is one of the fastest growing causes of homelessness, accounting for perhaps one instance in 10. As a result, we have seen mortgage repossessions rise by 72 per cent. this year over last year, to 75,000. Behind them stand another 90,000 to 100,000 families who are 12 months or more in arrears; 190,000 or so families who are between six and 12 months in arrears and, according to Shelter, perhaps 1 million who are between two and six months in arrears. In other words, 1.3 million of the 9.4 million householders with mortgages—or one in seven—are in difficulties, while one in 100 is being repossessed.
Why? The problem is caused by the interlocking of high housing costs with declining incomes. High housing costs include not only high interest rates, but high repayment rates due to overgenerous lending. In
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1989, 14 per cent. of borrowers received building society loans of more than three times annual income, compared to 4 per cent. in 1985. Many people also face declining incomes due, above all, to unemployment. In addition, there are fewer pathways out because falling house prices have meant that many people have mortgages that surpass the value of their property so they can neither trade down nor, given the market, sell up.
That tragedy is constructed partly by Government policies. It is the Government who determine the level of interest rates and who have shaped the level of unemployment which, we are told, is "a price well worth paying". It is the Government who have determined that owner-occupation is now virtually the only option available to young couples who are entering the housing market, whatever their income. Last year local authorities were permitted to complete just 6,000 houses and housing associations just 11,000, while repossessions numbered 75,000 properties. Young couples who, 15 years ago, would have started married life in a council house, saved for five years before going on to buy their first home on an 80 per cent. mortgage that was well within their means, are now battered all ways round. They cannot rent, so they have to buy but, because they cannot really afford to buy, they go into arrears and their home is repossessed. For the past four or five years research has been telling us that between 30 and 40 per cent. of all young couples cannot afford to enter owner-occupation, but too many have tried and are now facing repossession.
Tonight we are dealing with the casualties of Government policy. What a pity that the precipice was not fenced at the top by, for example, providing more social rented housing, instead of relying on a few ambulances at the bottom. The Government have, however, provided three kinds of ambulance, which were outlined by the Minister, and it is not our intention to oppose them. As he said, the first is that housing associations are taking short leases on repossessed properties to make them available to homeless families. Eighty housing associations were interested, but the building societies, such as the Bradford and Bingley, are already beginning to walk away from the scheme because the economic rents are too high. Indeed, such a scheme does not stop families being repossessed. How much more sensible it would have been to bring local authorities fully into the scheme, especially when they are required by law to provide temporary accommodation for homeless families. However, I understand that they are deterred even from acquiring former council houses, with the capital receipts coming from the sale of former council houses standing idle.
The second ambulance—and the source of the Bill—is to make income support payments directly to the lenders. Of course, we do not disagree that money that is made available for mortgage payments should be spent on that purpose, which is why we are not opposing the Bill, although I am sure that, on another occasion, the Opposition will seek to amend it. I shall return to that point.

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Thirdly, we have had the December initiative of the mortgage-to-rent scheme, worth some £750 million for existing owners via housing associations. That looks unlikely to aid more than 5,000 to 10,000 families because the resulting rents are likely to be well over £100 per week and well beyond the coverage of housing benefit. Ironically, the only point at which the local authorities are invited to become involved is to cover the difference between the economic cost and the housing benefit. Although 50 per cent. of the money may be reimbursed, poll tax payers are expected to find the rest.
What about the effectiveness of the ambulances? Phillips and Drew has given us the most detailed forecasts available. It believes that the leases on repossessed properties and the mortgages-to-rents scheme may help between 15,000 and 20,000 families. The direct payment of income support may save 10,000 families, but Phillips and Drew forecasts that there will still be 80,000 plus repossessions in 1992. Perhaps I may ask the Minister what the Government have in mind for those people. Council housing? There is none. Bed and breakfast? The social and financial cost of that is appallingly high. I should like to know what the Government propose and I hope that the Minister will tell us.
Finally, I return to the attachment of income support payments. The Bill presumes, to a degree, that there is a culpable and wilful refusal to hand the money over to the lender. Certainly, the lenders seem to think so. They calculate that only half of the income support payments that should go to to the lender do go to the lender. However, they do not know, because they do not know which of their borrowers are on income support, which of those on income support are in arrears and what proportion of those arrears could have been averted by direct payment.
Although we shall not oppose it, we want to argue that the scheme is flawed for at least four reasons. First, even when after 16 weeks mortgage interest payments are met in full by income support, income support still leaves unmet considerable costs that are associated with mortgages, such as the capital repayment element, which is rolled up; the insurance element of endowment mortgages; maintenance costs and even excessive costs. Therefore, the scheme meets only a proportion—although a substantial proportion—of the housing costs that are experienced by someone on income support.
Secondly, the problem has been created in part because families do not receive full reimbursement of the interest element of their mortgage. Since January 1987, for the first 16 weeks on income support, families get only half of their mortgage interest paid. That penalises at least one-third of those on income support. Let us assume a mortgage of £40,000 and outgoings before mortgage interest relief at source of £400 per month or £100 per week. The family will have to find half of that for the first 16 weeks. That means that out of an income support level of barely over £100, a couple with two young children will have to find £50 gross.
Thirdly, the provisions take no account of the other direct deductions that such families probably face. A
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Written Answer the other day suggested that one family in seven on income support had deductions of about £9 per week in May 1990 terms, which is probably nearer £12 per week now, for social fund loans, poll tax debts, fuel and water charges and certain fines. If a family with an income of about £100 per week and two dependent children is suddenly thrown onto income support, it will find that for the first 16 weeks well over one-third—and nearly one-half—of its income will go on the mortgage. On top of that, it is likely to face the attachment of a further £9 to £12 per week for other debts. It is not surprising, therefore, that when, after 16 weeks, that family moves on to full payment, the extra money is diverted and juggled into paying off the fuel bills—otherwise the heating will be disconnected—or the poll tax, because household goods will otherwise be lost to bailiffs.
All that is harsh enough but, turning to the fourth area in which we believe that the Bill is flawed, from April 1992 the nightmare of the 16-hour rule begins. From April 1992, full-time work begins not at 24 hours per week, but at 16 hours per week. At that point, families with children will be entitled to family credit, rather than income support. For many families, that will be more generous, and we welcome that, but it will lose some families their passport to mortgage repayments. Those without children will be eligible for nothing at all. Manchester City Council's survey found that one-fifth of all jobs were in the 16 to 24 to 28-hour range. Every one of those low paid, part-time workers will now lose the entitlement to income support and, therefore, to help with the mortgage.
It has not yet hit people. When it does I predict with considerable sadness that we shall see a soaring number of repossessions for those coming into the social security system for the first time. It will be especially damaging for those couples where one partner is in part-time work and the other becomes unemployed. They will experience not only a catastrophic drop in their income but a severe problem in facing their outgoings.
How will they cope? It is even more unfair because of course families on family credit who can claim housing benefit will not be able to get help with their mortgage. The Rowntree research in December 1991 found that a family with two children with a £70 a week mortgage would have to earn over £200 a week to be better off than on income support. That is the size of the sum, and that is the Rowntree research. I put that forward for consideration. Perhaps the Minister will tell us whether families in that situation will have a better buy choice? Will they be able to choose between income support with mortgage help or family credit?
Finally, how confident are the Government that DSS offices can expedite such claims? There are notorious delays in arranging direct payments to utilities such as gas or electricity of sometimes many months. There are notorious delays, also of months, when mortgage direct payments have been requested but are "still being handled". As I say, we do not oppose the Bill but we shall seek to amend it. We wish

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that the Government had lifted their eyes to fencing the precipice and doing something to tackle the underlying problems of homelessness.
7.21 p.m.
Earl Russell: My Lords, when I was giving my mind to this Bill I was vividly reminded of an occasion when I was five. I was taken to visit an eccentric millionaire on whom my father was for the time being completely dependent. It was of course impressed on me with more than usual vigour that I must behave politely. I was taken into the millionaire's picture gallery. It was covered with ornate Rubenesque canvasses, which were not precisely to a five-year-old's taste. I had also been brought up to be truthful. I looked around and finally caught sight of a small picture in the corner, which was a landscape. I said, "I like that one". Looking round the housing landscape, which might have been painted not by Rubens but by Hieronymus Bosch and finding this Bill lurking in the corner, I am prepared to say, "I like that one". It deals with a small part of the problem.
The noble Baroness, Lady Hollis of Heigham, quoted the UBS Phillips and Drew figures, which seemed to me as good an estimate as we can make. I should like in this context to pay tribute to my right honourable friend Mr. Ashdown for the contribution he has made to getting action taken on this. The mortgage to rent schemes that the building societies and lenders are undertaking are capable of being extremely useful. But we have here an example of the propensity of governments through the centuries to solve problems at other people's expense. Those schemes are happening at the lenders' expense. This Bill is being administered at the lenders' expense.
The lenders necessarily are interested in some quid pro quo, which, as I understand it, is the payment of mortgage interest from the DSS direct to the lender. We on these Benches also support that. But we wonder whether, had it been possible to spend a little more time on the Bill, and indeed if we can spend a bit of time on the Bill in its Committee stage, we might perhaps improve it.
I am not happy with the principle that the lender should be made to pay. I agree with Mr. Blackburn that it was not a building society executive who said, "If it isn't hurting, it isn't working". The Council of Mortgage Lenders' figures published this month suggest that a fairly substantial proportion of the repossessions we are dealing with are the result of the recession. The figures are 20 to 30 per cent. as the result of unemployment, 10 per cent. as the result of another drop in income and 5 per cent. as the result of business failure. This means 35 to 45 per cent. are the result of the recession.
We have no solution in sight for the 20 per cent. to 25 per cent. that are the result of relationship breakdown. That is a problem we shall have to address in future. It is being said that the problem of inability to sell the house is on some occasions preventing divorce. We are all keen on the preservation of marriage, but I am not certain that chaining the couple together in a house they cannot
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sell is the best way of doing it. In fact I am even moved to wonder whether this might have something to do with the rising figures announced last week for cases of domestic violence.
I am also interested in the reasons why it has been felt necessary to transfer income support directly to the lender. We are told that there were a number of people who were not paying their mortgage out of the income support. We do not have figures on this. As I understand it, we rely on anecdotal evidence. Now I make my living out of the careful, I hope, use of anecdotal evidence. I have no objection to anecdotal evidence but my noble kinsman has never quite taken the same line. Indeed I think it was last week—and I must apologise that I was not present on that occasion—on 18th February at col. 1149 that my noble kinsman said this:
"I suspect that if we put forward policies based on anecdotal evidence we should be, rightly, laughed out of court".
I shall be consistent. I have no intention of laughing my noble kinsman out of court. I think this is a perfectly good case, but it is anecdotal. I hope that he may therefore consider other anecdotal but soundly based cases with a little more sympathy in future.
Another point that causes me doubt about this Bill is that I am not certain whether it is necessary for the procedure to be compulsory when there are no arrears on the mortgage. A citizens advice bureau in South Wales has reported a case that puts my misgivings about this in a nutshell. There were no arrears. By the action of the DSS the mortgage interest element was transferred directly to the lender. The lender thereupon discovered for the first time that the woman was on income support and immediately began proceedings for repossession. That is not exactly the object of the exercise. I shall listen with care to what my noble kinsman says about this. I hope that we shall discuss this in Committee, and I shall be interested in hearing the case on the other side.
If there is a problem about paying income support to the lender, I wonder whether this may be because there is not quite enough to go round in some cases. An article in the Financial Times on 20th December recommended this measure on the ground that it was giving people protection from any temptation to waste the money on food. I wonder whether we might not find in a year's time that we are listening to a lot of medical evidence complaining about malnutrition and asking for us to take action to prevent people from wasting the money on housing. We need to think about this. I should like warmly to support the point that the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, made about deductions, including the 20 per cent. payment for the poll tax.
There are some detailed changes that I should be interested to see. Like the noble Baroness, I would be interested in doing something about the position for the first 16 weeks. I should like to ask my noble kinsman for clarification on the cost of that, because somewhere in Hansard for another place there is a misprint, and I should like to know which one it is. I have seen figures quoted of £35 million and of £75 million as the cost of doing that. I should like to know which it is. I should also like to ask again the question

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asked by my honourable friend Mr. Kirkwood in another place. He wanted an estimate of how many repossessions we could prevent if we introduced this change. He accepted that the Government were not able to answer then. He hoped that they soon would be, and so do I.
May I again illustrate with a specific case history why I think this change could be beneficial. It is another citizens advice bureau case; a painter-decorator in London whose work is occasional, and at the moment extremely occasional. He has continued to go on income support; he has gone through the first 16 weeks; obtained work again; finished work; and gone back into the first 16 weeks again. Debt builds up rapidly that way. Although my noble kinsman may say that that is just one case, I recall the discussions about the employment patterns of actors during the passage of the Social Security Bill 1989. A similar problem arises there. I am sure that it arises with freelance journalists, workers in the construction industry, and among people who have casual employment. We may find that the problem is a great deal more common that we believed.
I also agree with everything that the noble Baroness said about the part-time rule: people working between 16 and 24 hours a week who will not now receive income support for their mortgages. Those people will be better off if they do not work. I had always understood that the Government were against perverse incentives, but here they have introduced one. Again, I have a specific case which I believe illustrates the principle. A CAB in Essex reported that a single parent with four children completed a course of training and was offered a job paying £7,539 a year, but she lost help with the mortgage, and free school meals for all four of the children. She was £40 a week worse off. Does that make sense?
There is a case for having a specific mortgage benefit rather than tying the benefit to income support; but I suspect that that is something that will have to wait until the next Social Security Bill, if, indeed, we ever have one. I agree strongly with the case for including insurance premiums on an endowment mortgage within the scope of the Bill. That is at the very heart of the mortgage itself. One cannot have a mortgage without it.
I am worried about the pressure of work that the Bill will place on benefit offices, and the possible delay that may result. I should like to ask my noble kinsman whether the finance or the staffing levels of benefit offices will be adjusted to take account of the extra work, or whether benefit offices will merely be asked to be more efficient or, as the rest of us might put it, more inefficient. I welcome the Bill. I should like it on the statute book, but it needs a good Committee stage before it gets there.
7.34 p.m.
The Earl of Onslow: My Lords, it is worth going into some of the reasons why horrendously high house prices arrived in the late 1980s. It was due to financial deregulation and a lax money supply. Those two factors combined resulted in high house prices. When there are high house prices, there is high inflation, and
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that is what happened. Noble Lords opposite have complained about the problem being the fault of the Government, but at the time they were advocating an even looser money supply which would have increased inflation even more, but I will let that pass.
I welcome the Bill. With high mortgages and debt there is now a definite need for debt counselling. Sir Gordon Borrie, in a report in the late 1980s, hinted that that was necessary. As a result of a committee, I believe headed by the noble Lord, Lord Ezra, a body called the Money Advice Trust was set up in September 1990. Its purpose is to raise money from the private sector to fund independent debt advice which adds to and complements central and local government support for money advice.
The trust is chaired by Sir George Blunden, former deputy governor of the Bank of England. He has given three main reasons why lenders should contribute to the trust. First, it is clearly in the interests of the lending institutions themselves to help to ensure the availability of an adequate supply of debt counsellors. Secondly, responsibility for many of the problems with which money advisers struggle must fall on the lending institutions, and it is clearly right that those institutions should contribute to the costs of resolving the mess. Thirdly, there is a desire on the part of government and the Office of Fair Trading to see lenders fund money advice.
The trust has a four-point plan to improve the provision of debt advice: regional expert back-up for CABs through a planned national network of money advice units (CABs are the main agencies through which advice on debt problems is given); provision of a national telephone debt advice service; access to self-help packs through a national answerline; and, training of money advice workers. The DSS now pays £750 million in interest payments.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: My Lords, income support for mortgages.
The Earl of Onslow: My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness. The response from the banks and the utilities has been broadly positive with over £1 million collected, of which a quarter is in cash, a quarter in secondments, and half in direct support for money advice projects. That goes towards the £3 million needed by the trust from the financial institutions so that it can fulfil its essential duties. The initial response from the building societies has been poor. Apart from Nationwide Anglia and the Woolwich, commitments to money advice by the societies have been negligible. On 3rd February representatives from leading societies met the chairman, director and trustees of the trust at the DTI. The meeting was chaired by Mr. Edward Leigh, Consumer Affairs Minister. Following the meeting it was hoped that societies would reconsider their decision not to support the trust. In an extinct peerage case in the early 17th century Sir Ranulphe Crewe said:
"Where is Bohun, where is Mowbray, where is Mortimer? Nay, which is more and most of all, where is Plantagenet?"
I paraphrase that to say: where is the Alliance and Leicester? Where is the Cheltenham and Gloucester'? Where is—I have missed my place. Where is another

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one? Most of all, where is the National Provincial? They should be contributing towards this excellent trust. If I do not receive an encouraging reply from my noble friend I may introduce an amendment in Committee. Otherwise, I support the Bill.
7.37 p.m.
Lord Henley: My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, spoke generally on housing issues and possible problems in that area. I do not intend to follow the generality of her speech but to stick to the subject matter of the Bill and the small part it plays in the larger package announced over the past few months by various other members of the government. My noble kinsman Lord Russell, predictably, made a general attack upon the adequacy of income support. I am sure that he will not be surprised if I say that I do not agree with him on that matter, and repeat that there is no evidence that it is not possible to sustain an adequate diet on income support; but this is not the time or the place to discuss those matters.
Everyone will agree that there is a broad measure of support for the Bill and its intentions. Certain points about the Bill and income support payments for mortgage repayments have been raised with which I shall deal. I shall deal first with the initial 16 weeks and the 50 per cent. of eligible interest covered in those first few weeks about which the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, and my noble kinsman Lord Russell complained. They alleged that that could be a significant cause of repossessions. I shall repeat what the CML assured us when the changes were made. It assured us that the changes in isolation would not be a factor that would cause repossession. We feel that—
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: My Lords, I thank the Minister for giving way. How would it know that was the case because that first 16 weeks place such a strain on family budgets that they run into debt in other areas? When the money begins to come through, it is perhaps "improperly used"—I say that in quotation marks —to pay off other debts. The Minister speaks confidently on this matter, but I do not see how the council could know about these factors.
Lord Henley: My Lords, I cannot speak for the CML. I can, however, say that it does not feel that in isolation what we are discussing is a cause for repossession.
What I wanted to go on to say was that we feel that the 50 per cent. we have discussed strikes the right balance between helping people through short-term difficulties and—this must be a factor that is relevant—the burden that is placed on the generality of taxpayers by benefit expenditure. I should add that what the noble Baroness fails to remember is that any arrears built up as a result of that 16 weeks can be capitalised and interest on them can be met subsequently. There is, therefore, help available to borrowers for debts they might have built up. However, in the main people in the first 16 weeks of unemployment—or whatever may be the cause of their being on income support —are more likely to
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have some other resources. They might be payments in lieu of notice or payments in lieu of redundancy, for example, which will allow them to meet many of these bills far better than after the 16-week period is up.
The noble Baroness also commented on the changes in respect of the 16 to 24-hour rule. I think I am right in saying that the noble Baroness partially welcomed these changes for some people on family credit. There will be protection for those who are on income support who would otherwise lose out at the point of change. Again in that case there will not be losers as a result of the Bill or as a result of the change in the hours rule from 24 to 16.
My noble kinsman objected to the charge being made to the Council of Mortgage Lenders. One must look at this again as part of the package. It is something that has been agreed by the Council of Mortgage Lenders as part of the quid pro quo that it would not make any repossessions where income support payments were being made. In return, the council agreed to pay some of the administrative costs as appropriate. The subdivision of the agreed contribution will be carried out, we hope, on an equitable basis. Whatever charging arrangements might be appropriate for future years will be considered later this year in consultation with the lenders.
The noble Baroness asked whether the benefits agency of the Department of Social Security can cope with this issue. I am certainly confident that that will be the case. These extra resources will go a long way to easing any problems the agency might otherwise be likely to suffer.
I welcome the admirable concern that my noble kinsman expressed on the administrative difficulties of the benefits agency. I cannot give an example, but certainly in the past I seem to recall that when I argued that the administrative concerns of the department should be taken into account my noble kinsman did not consider that to be relevant. I am glad that on this occasion he at least points to problems that might arise. I can assure him we are happy that the benefits agency will be able to cope with this.
My noble kinsman also asked whether we could have a new mortgage benefit for all low income families and not just those on income support. I must say that the main source of help for all home owners is the mortgage interest tax relief which is estimated at some £6 billion in 1991–92. A mortgage benefit scheme on top of that would be costly and could easily increase dependence on state assistance both on the part of individuals and for the housing market itself. We are certainly not convinced that that would be the appropriate response to the present market difficulties. Certainly I suspect it could easily have a distortionary effect on the housing market.
The noble Baroness asked whether income support could also help with repayments of capital, if I understood her correctly. She shakes her head. Obviously I misunderstood her and she did not think it was right that help should be given with capital. I am glad I have obtained that agreement from her.
I turn again to my noble kinsman. He asked how many repossessions would be saved if we abolished the

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16-week rule and paid interest from the first week of a claim. Again I cannot go any further than what the Council of Mortgage Lenders has assured us; that is, that such a measure would not in itself make any difference to the number of repossessions.
I now turn to the points raised by my noble friend Lord Onslow. I very much agree with the need for debt counselling. I appreciate how important it can be in preventing people from getting into difficulties that can lead to repossessions later on. The Government put significant sums of money into the National Association of Citizens Advice Bureaux and its counterpart in Scotland. That will certainly help the CABs give general advice, including money advice. We believe, though that the private sector itself should support money advice counselling. My noble friend mentioned my honourable friend Mr. Leigh in another place. We are keen to see an improvement in the private sector's contribution. No doubt my noble friend will come back to this point in Committee. We do not consider that a statutory obligation on lenders to provide funding for money advice would be appropriate. We prefer that support should continue to be given on a voluntary basis. I very much hope that various people have taken note of what my noble friend had to say and will continue to support such bodies as the Money Advice Trust or any other body that offers debt counselling.
I look forward to a thorough Committee stage on this Bill. No doubt my noble kinsman, my noble friend and the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, will table amendments which we can discuss in greater detail on that occasion. For the moment, as I have said, there is clearly a broad measure of support for this Bill and the purposes it serves. I very much hope the House will give it a Second Reading. I certainly commend it to the House.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: My Lords, before the Minister sits down, I hope he will be kind enough to answer two questions that were raised by the noble Earl, Lord Russell, and myself. First, I seek clarification on the cost of restoring 100 per cent. benefit from the first week as opposed to from 16 weeks, given the confusion in the House of Commons Hansard. Secondly, we obviously support the transitional arrangements —I raised this point—that families on income support will be protected, but in future after the 16 hour per week rule comes in, will families coming into social security for the first time be permitted to have a "better buy" choice between income support or family credit?
Lord Henley: My Lords, in answer to the first question, my understanding is that the figure is something of the order of £45 million. If I have that wrong, I shall certainly write to the noble Baroness to correct the figure. In answer to the second question, I do not think it will be possible to have what the noble Baroness refers to as the "better buy" option. Certainly for those who are on income support at the time of the change there will be protection, but thereafter they would have to rely on family credit.
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One must, however, stress that family credit levels are considerably higher than the appropriate amount of income support.
On Question, Bill read a second time, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.
Earl Howe: My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now adjourn during pleasure until 8.5 p.m.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
[The Sitting was suspended from 7.50 to 8.5 p.m.]

Education (Schools) Bill
House again in Committee.
Clause 2 [Functions of the Chief Inspector for England]:
Baroness Blackstone Baroness Blackstone moved Amendment No. 20:
Page 1, line 26, after ("(1)") insert:
("It shall be the principal duty of the Chief Inspector for England to give advice as he thinks fit to the Secretary of State on any matter concerning the provision of education by schools in England, including in particular (as regards maintained schools) advice concerning the curriculum mentioned in section 1(2) of the Education Reform Act 1988; and").
The noble Baroness said: In moving Amendment No. 20, I should like to speak also to Amendment No. 50. The effect of the amendments would be to strengthen the independence of each chief inspector, giving an overarching power to give advice to the Secretary of State, whether welcome or not, whether solicited or not, and a statutory obligation towards the "balanced and broadly based curriculum" for maintained schools which is laid down in Section 1(2) of the Education Reform Act 1988. Section 1(2) of the 1988 Act states:
"The curriculum for a maintained school satisfies the requirements of this section if it is a balanced and broadly based curriculum which—

(a) promotes the spiritual, moral, cultural, mental and physical development of pupils at the school and of society; and

(b) prepares such pupils for the opportunities, responsibilities and experiences of adult life".

The Minister of State, during the Committee stage in another place, did not reply to the proposition that the duties of Her Majesty's Chief Inspectors of Schools should be connected with the provision of a broad and balanced curriculum. The Minister of State's reply to the proposition that the chief inspectors should have a principal duty to give advice was close to being misleading since the provisions of Clause 2(5), which we have already debated, could—without being absolutely binding since it speaks of "having regard to"—serve considerably to constrain the chief inspectors. I hope that today the Minister will be able to give a more satisfactory reply than the one given in another place when a similar amendment was moved.
In speaking to the amendments, perhaps I may begin by saying, first, that the drafting of Clause 2 seems to us to lack a sense of strategic purpose. There is a danger that the office of HMI is to be reduced to a mainly administrative function giving remote control direction to registered inspectors. In our view, the role of giving advice towards the better

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achievement of the aims of the Education Reform Act, as set out in Section 1(2) of that Act, to which I have just referred, is the proper expression of a long-term strategic role or vision for the chief inspectors.
Secondly, there is an issue of confidence. Clause 2(1) provides a duty of keeping the Secretary of State informed, whereas surely there should be a principal duty to advise as the chief inspectors think fit. It is partly for the chief inspector to press for the achievement of higher standards and partly to reinforce the perceptions of the independent standing of the inspectorate, since it is likely that the effectiveness of the holder of that office, in working within the teaching profession, will be greater if teachers' perceptions of the inspectorate's independence can be reinforced. An effective inspectorate will need to be critical of teachers, at least in some instances, although one would hope not all the time. That criticism would most constructively be received from an authentically independent adviser.
It may be true in practice, as I have no doubt the Minister will say that it is, that in principle nothing in the provisions of the Bill prevent the chief inspectors from giving advice freely. However, there is an issue of confidence and a positive provision should be made on the face of the Bill.
This amendment uniquely raises the question of Her Majesty's Chief Inspector's relationship to the curriculum for schools and the purposes of each school's curriculum. The drafting of Clause 2(1) leaves undefined its most important terms. Clause 2(1) refers to:
"the quality of the education provided by schools … [and] the educational standards achieved in those schools".
But how should the chief inspectors construe quality and standards? Will the chief inspectors be free to decide, or is there an implied reference for maintained schools to the duty of the Secretary of State, under Section 1(1) of the Education Reform Act, to secure that the curriculum for each school satisfies the test of that section? What scope is there for any interpretation of quality and standards by the Secretary of State to which he could give effect by directions under Clause 2(5), which we have already discussed?
The crux of the matter is whether Her Majesty's Chief Inspectors are bound to the aims of broad and balanced curricula for schools or whether their duties are to be guided by the Secretary of State's directions—for example, perhaps toward narrowly construed league tables, which in our view would damage the maintenance of a broad and balanced curriculum? I beg to move.
Lord Elton: The Committee will have seen that my amendment, Amendment No. 21, is grouped with Amendment No. 20 of the noble Baroness and is pointed in the same general direction. To that extent we are in a loose and unfamiliar confederation. However, I draw the Committee's attention to one peculiarity of her amendment, in case she should be minded to press it and not regard it, as I do, as a trial run before Report.
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The noble Baroness's amendment would ensure that under Clause 2 it shall be the principal duty of the chief inspector to do what is contained in Amendment No. 20. After that it gives the Chief Inspector for England the general duty of keeping the Secretary of State informed about the matters listed. I wonder whether making one function the principal duty and the other function, as it were, a merely general duty is wise or indeed whether it puts them necessarily in the right order. I believe that the chief inspector ought to have a duty to keep the Secretary of State informed, as the Bill now requires, and that on occasion that duty may be at least as great as the duty of keeping him advised.
Nevertheless, having said that, an important function of Her Majesty's Inspectorate and of the chief inspector will be advising the Secretary of State and not merely acting as his reconnaissance force under the command of the general. The chief inspector should in fact be a professional advising the general.
I am always happier when such things are stated on the face of the Bill. It is possible that my noble friend will say that HMCI for England or HMCI for Wales will be empowered to make recommendations to his relevant Secretary of State if he so wishes. I would rather that he had a duty so to do. Apart from anything else, in order to defend the position of the new department of state in the financial arguments that it will have on its own behalf with the Treasury, as we said, the functions of the department of state must be clear to the Treasury.
I do not wish to extend the arguments. I have made clear what I wish to find out. At Report stage I may well be minded to refine the point and ask Her Majesty's Government to accept an amendment. However, I should like first to hear the reply.
8.15 p.m.
Baroness Denton of Wakefield: Both the noble Baroness and my noble friend suggested ways in which I might answer which have some relevance. I recognise that they are both trying to be helpful in these amendments. My noble friend notes that there are dangers in suggesting that advice is the primary duty of HMCI. I do not believe that the amendments are appropriate. They are certainly not necessary to ensure that the Secretary of State receives advice from HMCI.
The amendments would give the chief inspector the additional duty to give advice to the Secretary of State in addition to the duty to keep the Secretary of State informed about quality and standards of education and about the use of resources by schools. HMCI is already under a duty to provide the Secretary of State with advice as requested and is entirely free to bring any other matters within his remit to the attention of the Secretary of State. HMCI will be free to comment and offer his views—as he or she wishes —on what he finds. If he does so in the form of a report to the Secretary of State, he may publish it.
HMCI certainly has an implicit power to add his own view and advice to anything that he sends to the Secretary of State. Indeed it would be impossible in practice to prevent, even if that were our intention.

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But, by defining the duty as the provision of information, we ensure that the facts underpinning those views are always made available, while putting no restriction on what the chief inspector may add.
But the Bill does not give the chief inspector a duty—still less the principal duty—to offer advice, as distinct from information, on all matters within the scope of his powers. There is a danger with such a wide duty that we might appear to be setting up the chief inspector as an alternative source of educational policy. That is properly the responsibility of the Secretary of State and it is for the Secretary of State to determine the key areas in which he feels he might need HMI's advice to inform that policy, in the light very often of the chief inspector's own reports. That will be achieved through the ability to request advice in subsection 2(2).
It would be wrong to try to put any particular slant on the HMCIs' activities, as Amendments Nos. 20 and 50 would do. One important focus of their activities will be matters which fall within the scope of Section 1 of the Education Reform Act. The Secretary of State has a central responsibility under that section in respect of the school curriculum. The HMCIs will, by the very nature of their responsibilities, be particularly concerned to assess the operation of the curriculum, including whether it fulfils the requirements of Section 1(2) by being balanced, broadly based, promoting pupils' development and preparing them for adult life. But there are many other statutes—for example, the 1981 Act on special needs—which will require HMI effort and energy. Those should not be put in danger of relegation to second division status. We believe that the right thing to do is leave the HMCIs free to decide their priorities in the light of the needs of the Secretary of State of the day and their own professional judgment about areas where information and advice can most profitably be provided.
I hope that with those comments the noble Baroness and my noble friend will feel able to withdraw their amendments.
Baroness Seear: The noble Baroness has given her case away. She stated that it was implicit that the inspector could give advice. But we want it to be explicit. That is the whole point. There is a world of difference between giving information and giving advice, certainly if the advice is only implicit. We want the inspector, as the informed professional, to be able to say things to the Secretary of State that the Secretary of State does not wish to hear. That is the way in which the expert, professional knowledge of the inspector can be most readily available. I do not believe that, by saying that it is implicit, the noble Baroness has met the point which we seek to make.
Baroness Denton of Wakefield: I am sorry if I did not make myself clear on the matter.
Baroness Seear: The noble Baroness made herself all too clear. She does not want what we want. That is the whole point. It is not that the noble Baroness did not make herself clear.
Baroness Denton of Wakefield: Perhaps I may reiterate that there is nothing in the Bill which stops
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HMCI giving any advice which he or she may wish, as I am sure the person responsible in the situation would do.
Lord Elton: That was a useful clarification. It makes it much easier for me to follow on. That is the precise point that my amendment addresses. My amendment differs from those put forward by the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone. It does not give a primacy of duty to give advice but it gives an equality of duty.
If I were an intemperate Secretary of State—which I dare say that, after many years of dealing with education, I might well have become—and the inspectorate came to me and said, "It is time you did something about X", I would say, "I didn't ask you for that advice". Members of the inspectorate might say, "It is very important". I would reply, "Will you kindly look at the Act? You have duties under the Act. I am prepared to accept that you have duties. I should be glad if you restricted yourself to them. First, you have a general duty to keep me informed. You have done that last week. Secondly, you have a duty to give me advice when I ask for it. I haven't. Thirdly, you have a duty to do things about registered inspectors and this has nothing to do with that. I am a very busy man. Would you please leave me alone?" I would not be so brusque and tactless as that; I would wrap it all up. But the effect would be the same. I should be comforted by the wording of the Act in not placing any great weight on the advice I was given that I had not asked for.
I do not believe that that is the shape or balance that the Bill ought to have. My noble friend Lord Eccles referred to the professional knowledge and information brought back by Her Majesty's Inspectorate from all over the country. Its members will be the repositories of a vast amount of information which will make clear to them that certain things ought to be done. If the Secretary of State does not feel impelled at least to listen to them and to judge carefully what they say, then I believe that the Act will be the weaker.
My proposal adds no extra charges to public expense. It expands the duties and functions of the inspectorate not one millimetre beyond what my noble friend stated that they already should be. It does not threaten anyone's employment or policies. I hope that my noble friend will consider the matter again before Report stage and feel able to yield at least an inch.
Lord Dormand of Easington: I am confused by what appears to be a contradiction by the Minister. I had intended to raise the point but when the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, raised it I thought the matter had been clarified. At the beginning of the Minister's first speech, she stated that HMCI can give advice if requested. I wrote down the words "if requested". I believe that that simply means that if a request is not made information or advice (whatever one might call it) will not be given. That is where I am confused. If HMCI see something that is manifestly wrong in the educational service—I know that it happens from time to time—surely the initiative should lie with HMCI to advise the Secretary of State without having to be

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requested. I believe that there was a contradiction in the words that the Minister used. In view of what the last two speakers have said, the issue ought to be clarified. It is important.
Baroness Denton of Wakefield: I stated that HMCI is already under a duty to provide the Secretary of State with advice as requested, and if requested, and is entirely free to bring any other matters within his remit to the attention of the Secretary of State. Should we have a scenario such as that envisaged by my noble friend featuring an intemperate Secretary of State, such a person could not stop HMCI exercising the power both to give the advice and, importantly, to publish that advice. The absence of a duty to do so is not the key issue.
Lord Elton: The point that I seek to make is this. Advice that is included on the face of the Bill under Clause 2(2) will be treated differently from advice that is not specifically referred to on the face of the Bill. Should not all advice be placed before the Secretary of State with a sufficient degree of recognition in law to enable the Secretary of State not to feel—as I would feel were I Secretary of State—that he could treat it differently? When I was a Minister of State I frequently looked at statutes and thus kept myself out of the High Court on more than one occasion. It is common practice to look at the law to see what one's powers, duties and conventions are. I hope that my noble friend will not feel that she could not spare a little time between now and Report stage to consider the matter again.
Baroness Denton of Wakefield: I have heard the anxieties that have been expressed. I shall consider the issues further before Report stage.
Baroness Blackstone: I am grateful to the noble Baroness for agreeing to consider the matter further. I entirely agree with every word that the noble Lord, Lord Elton, said.
There are two issues. The first relates to advice, as against informing. Clearly, to give the chief inspectors a duty to keep the Secretary of State informed is quite different from giving a duty to the chief inspectors to advise the Secretary of State. I repeat what the noble Lord, Lord Elton, said. Clause 2(2) makes it absolutely clear on the face of the Bill that the chief inspectors for England and Wales can only advise the Secretary of State when asked to do so. I can see nowhere in the Bill a statement which makes it perfectly clear that both chief inspectors are entirely free to give advice, as the noble Baroness has just claimed. The Bill states that they are not. The Bill states that they can do so when they are asked.
We must consider the matter again. It is a serious problem in the Bill. I was a little surprised to hear the noble Baroness say that to advise rather than to inform involved the chief inspectors becoming an alternative source of educational policy. We are returning to some of the issues that troubled us about the inclusion of Clause 2(5).
Perhaps I may briefly turn to the second issue raised in my amendment. It is important that the chief
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inspector should be able to give advice on a broad and balanced curriculum. That is a fundamental part of the Education Reform Act. What is taught to pupils in our schools, the content of education, is central. The people who are best placed to advise Ministers on what that content should be are the chief inspectors. But the noble Baroness stated that she did not believe that that ought to be on the face of the Bill because there are many other issues of high priority. Of course I agree. But it seems to me that there is no more fundamental issue of high priority than having a broad and balanced curriculum for all our pupils.
I have no intention of dividing on these matters today. However, we shall not hesitate to do so if there cannot be some satisfactory reply when we reach the next stage of the Bill with, I hope, some proposals from the Government for amendments. On that basis, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Denton of Wakefield: Before the noble Baroness sits down, I wish to point out that Clause 2 does not state "Only when asked to do so by the Secretary of State". It states: "When asked to do so". The alternatives are still open and I reiterate that government make policy.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
8.30 p.m.
Lord Elton Lord Elton had given notice of his intention to move Amendment No. 21:
Page 1, leave out line 27 and insert ("informing and advising the Secretary of State about—").
The noble Lord said: I shall not move my amendment on the basis that the Minister's undertaking to consider matters before Report applies to my amendment.
[Amendment No. 21 not moved.]
[Amendment No. 22 not moved.]
Lord Northbourne Lord Northbourne moved Amendment No. 23:
Page 2, line 1, leave out ("and").
The noble Lord said: In moving the amendment, I shall speak also to Amendments Nos. 26, 53, 55, 102, 106, 187 and 192. I apologise to the Committee for taking a few minutes to do so, but there are two groups of amendments. They relate to values in schools and to making public the ethos and values of schools. The second group of amendments, Nos. 187 and 192, relate to the prospectus of the school. They provide not only that each school should have a prospectus but that it should set out as clearly as possible the kind of school that it is and the ethos and values which it aims to promulgate both through the curriculum and outside it. The remaining six amendments relate to the inspectorate. They aim to provide that when schools are inspected, the inspectors are put under an obligation to report on the ethos and values of the school as well as on its academic achievement.
On Second Reading there was a substantial measure of agreement that those objectives are broadly desirable. I must stress to the Committee that the intention of the amendments is not in any sense to attempt to place any kind of restriction upon the values which are transmitted by the school. They are

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tabled simply and only to require that the public and the parents are informed about the values of the school.
On Second Reading the noble Baroness was sympathetic towards the objectives. However, she argued that my worries were already covered by existing legislation and by the Bill. I have taken a good deal of trouble to look into that argument. I regret to say that I am not convinced. I believe that it can be substantially sustained only by making special assumptions about the word "education" and/or about the word "curriculum" within the Act. Neither of those words are defined within the Bill or anywhere else on the statute book.
I wish to look first at Amendments Nos. 23, 26, 53, 55, 102 and 106, which deal with inspection. As the Bill stands, the inspectors are required to report on the quality of the education provided. However, the word "education" is not defined. It is possible to argue that education includes all the experiences, attitudes, values and knowledge transmitted by the school in and out of class. The question is whether the inspectors will take that view. There is no guarantee that they will.
On Second Reading the noble Baroness suggested that for a definition of "education" one should look at Section 1 of the 1988 Act. That section refers specifically to the curriculum which, as was said by the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, is required to be balanced and broadly-based and to promote the spiritual, moral, cultural, mental and physical development of pupils. Parents also need to be informed about what is going on outside the curriculum.
It has been suggested that the word "curriculum" could be understood to mean everything which goes on in the school. I do not believe that that is a sustainable argument. I ask myself whether extracurricular activities are part of the curriculum. Are the attitudes and examples of the staff part of the curriculum? Is the attitude of the school towards the parents part of the curriculum? I do not believe that it can be argued that they are. In this case and on this important issue it is essential that there should be no possibility of misunderstanding. Therefore, I argue that there is a need for a clause in the Bill which clearly and unequivocally directs inspectors to report on the whole school, including the ethos and values in and out of the classroom.
For the purpose of the wording in the amendments, I have used the categories of development which are listed in the 1988 Act—spiritual, moral and cultural—and I have used those epithets to describe the values that we are talking about. That is not the only description that can be used. It is possible to use, for example, the words "ethos and values"; but in doing so, we introduce a totally new concept. Therefore, it may be better to stick to the words which are already on the face of the earlier Act.
There is another reason why it is important for inspectors to be required to inspect and to report on the spiritual, moral and cultural values of each school. The Government have opted for diversity. Without doubt, sooner or later, some ideological groups—they
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may be political, religious or something else—will gain sufficient control of some of our schools to influence the values which are transmitted to the pupils. Some of those values may not be what some parents want for their children. Some could be inimical to a pluralistic and liberal democracy; for example, values in relation to equal opportunities, to the role of women and girls in society and to racial issues. Inspectors visiting such schools could be under considerable pressure not to report on such issues unless they are clearly and unambiguously required to do so by law.
I wish to turn briefly to Amendments Nos. 187 and 192. They relate to the prospectus which is a rather complicated subject. The 1980 Act gives to the Secretary of State powers to lay down regulations on matters that schools must cover in their prospectus. There is a good deal of regulation in subsequent Acts. Some regulations have been made but they are patchy. Some subjects, such as sex education, are well covered; but other subjects are not. I take my information from the Heads' Legal Guide 1989 so it could possibly be out of date. By way of example, I point out that discipline and punishment are items which must he described under the regulations. However, discipline and punishment are the only elements referred to in relation to the behaviour of pupils, to the standards of behaviour expected by pupils and to the type of school community which the school represents. Again, there is no reference to the disclosure of the school's attitude to competition.
I am privileged to be a governor of a school in the independent sector which has an extremely high success rate in examination passes and university entrance. It is a competitive and meritocratic school, and I am proud of it. However, I should not recommend it for a pupil who might be traumatised or who might find difficulty in keeping pace. The point that I am making is, as in horses for courses, the parents need to know what kind of school it is.
There is no reference in the regulations to the school's attitude to parents. Some parents want to leave it to the professionals. Others wish to be partners in their children's education. Again, I suggest that parents need to know.
Finally, I have picked out three issues almost at random. I could have picked out more. The general point is that if parents are to have the right to choose their child's school, they need to have as full a picture as possible of the kind of school it is; that is, its ethos and values as well as its academic success. These amendments would lay an obligation on the governors or the other authorities responsible for the school to provide that information. I beg to move.
Baroness Strange: I support the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, and shall speak also to Amendments Nos. 26, 53, 55, 102, 106 and 187, which are all grouped together.
One of the Government's main aims in bringing forward this education Bill is to ensure the greatest possible choice for parents. It seems to me that that is a very basic right and freedom. All parents wish to do the best possible for their children and, of course, all parents have different ideas as to how their children should be brought up. When considering the school,

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there is the consideration of access, how easy it is to get to a particular school, whether it is within walking distance or within convenient reach of the school bus. There is the question of the state of the school buildings, safety regulations and the quality of school meals. All those are physical requirements which naturally concern parents.
However, a school is there to teach and to impart knowledge. For that, parents must see that the school follows the national curriculum. That is the level of the mind. Human beings also have another dimension: they have a dimension of spirit. Parents may be Christian, Jewish, Moslems or have no faith at all. However, they will wish their children to be educated in the same way. Whatever their views, it is the right of parents to know what are the spiritual, moral and cultural values of the school so that they can choose a school which approximates best to what they wish for their own children.
It could be argued that the Bill already caters for that and it is not necessary to spell it out in such detail. However, I believe it is necessary and that that will help to resolve differences of spiritual values because the school will state clearly where it stands.
Bus stops have their destinations marked on them. Medicine bottles are marked for sore throats, headaches or whatever they aim to cure. Restaurants have a bill of fare displayed outside. Surely for something so vital as the spiritual, moral and cultural values for our children, there should be clear and specific statements of what those are in each and every school. I support the amendments.
8.45 p.m.
The Lord Bishop of Guildford: I support this group of amendments to which my name is attached. I approach them from perhaps a slightly different angle. As the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, said, these amendments provide for the inspectorate to comment, in particular, on the spiritual, moral and cultural aspect not just of the curriculum but of the whole ethos of the school.
I welcome that. However, inevitably, we need to see that in relation to the provisions for the inspection of religious education, or, as it is called in the Bill, denominational education. It may be that people would fear that those two impinge on one another.
Clause 14 makes it quite clear that denominational education is to be inspected separately under rather separate provisions. That is right. It would not be acceptable to those who sponsor and provide the voluntary schools if they were not at liberty to inspect the religious education and to judge whether that is in accordance with the precepts of the particular providing body, whether Christian, Jewish or any other faith.
We must recognise that if religious education is a feature of a voluntary school, it will affect the whole of the perception of the curriculum. I hope that it will not dominate it, but it will have an effect because our philosophical or religious understanding is bound to have an effect on how we appreciate, for example, history or literature.
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I have no objection to people teaching religious education with conviction and with enthusiasm. Indeed, any teacher needs to have those attitudes, whatever subject is being taught. However, in religious education in particular we must ensure that young people are given the space to form their own judgments about what they are being taught and to make their own evaluations. There is no case for indoctrination, which means requiring people to come to certain views and conclusions. There is an extremely vital distinction between indoctrination and education. As R. M. Hare said, the educator tries to turn children into adults; the indoctrinator seeks to make them perpetual children.
I want to see religious education inspected vigorously and fearlessly. If the Bill becomes law, roughly speaking, in its present terms, I should wish to encourage, at any rate, Church of England schools to try to find inspectorate teams which have an understanding of the religious dimension as the Church of England understands it. Moreover, they could arrange that the inspection of the curriculum under the normal provisions and the inspection of religious education take place simultaneously and by the same group of people because I believe that there is an integrity right across the board in the way that we understand the education.
However, we must recognise also that in respect of the content of the religious education and also the whole ethos and the way in which it is all handled across the curriculum, the secular inspectorate—if I may use these terms—should be able and free to comment that the religious element appears to be verging on the indoctrination rather than the straight education. As one of those concerned with voluntary schools, I should welcome any such criticism from the inspectorate if it was well founded because religious education providers would need to take that on board.
Therefore, I see this group of amendments as being complementary to the religious education provisions in Clause 14 and to be a strengthening of our whole perception of the spiritual, moral and cultural dimension. For those reasons I support the amendments.
Lord Beloff: I should like to be able to support the sponsors of the amendment. The difficulty seems to me that they have not taken into account fully the central feature of the Bill; namely, that inspections and who inspects will be determined as a result of competitive tender. What kind of tenders will be put forward to say that a particular team is more spiritually or culturally suitable than any other team? Will its members have to show special cultural or ethical characteristics?
It used to be said that the reason why the Clarendon Press in Oxford produced error-free texts was that there was always a number of unfrocked clergymen who could be employed as proof readers. I do not know if that class exists in our more liberal and ecumenical society, but does anything correspond to the class of unfrocked priests who may be recruited by the inspection teams?
We may have the highest ideals for the curriculum for moral and spiritual development. However, at the

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heart of the Bill we have a mere commercial transaction, those matters are likely to bear very dead fruit.
Lord Rochester: Unlike the noble Baroness, Lady Strange, I am not a devotee of the concept of parental choice in school selection, if only because that choice is denied to so many parents; nor am I at all happy about the way the Government are proposing to reorganise the arrangements for school inspection. But with respect to the noble Lord, Lord Beloff, for whose views I have considerable respect, we must accept that the arrangements for inspection are at the heart of this Bill, and what we now have to do is to make the best use of them that we can.
The Bill is rightly concerned with the academic performance of schools but it has nothing to say about the spiritual, moral, cultural, mental and physical values that schools are obliged to promote under the 1988 Act. I am diffident in speaking about some of these values because I am all too conscious of my own shortcomings in upholding some of them. Nevertheless, I think that parents are entitled to know how schools are fulfilling this statutory duty.
As the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, acknowledged, there is a problem as to how the required values are to be defined. At Second Reading he gave some examples of how it might be done. To judge from the way in which schools in Cheshire (where I live) have already managed to meet the requirements of the 1988 Act in this respect, I believe that what might well be regarded as best practice could now be built upon nationally by means of amendments of the kind proposed. In Cheshire it is commonplace for a school to produce for internal use a development plan in which the school states what it conceives its core purposes to be. This often includes values of the kind referred to in these amendments. Similarly, its prospectus will include a statement of what the school stands for, and that information is thus made available to parents.
For example, a school in my locality quotes in its prospectus the view expressed in the Warnock Report—and I am glad to see the noble Baroness in her place—that one of the long-term aims in the education of all children should be to enlarge the child's knowledge, experience, imagination and understanding and thus his awareness of moral values and capacity for enjoyment. Similarly, Cheshire's education authority—which I believe is generally acknowledged to be one of the best in the land—states one of its aims to be,
"to nurture the spiritual, social and moral development of young people by encouraging active consideration of human behaviour and relationships with others".
The practice of declaring basic organisational objectives is followed by many well run businesses for the benefit of their shareholders, employees and customers. For instance, the company for which I used to work stated in its last annual report:
"ICI seeks to ensure that all its activities are acceptable to the communities of which it is part and that the environmental impact of its operations is kept to a practicable minimum".
That company set out specific objectives which it had formulated to improve its environmental performance. For my part, I see every reason why schools should adhere to the same practice in declaring the
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values for which they stand and the means by which those values are to be promoted. That is clearly the purpose of Amendment No. 187 which I should particularly like to support.
Of course problems may arise, for example in the case of an inner city school which has to cope with a population of mixed races or even ethnic tensions. It may well be that the wording of these amendments will need to be altered to deal adequately with those difficulties. However, today we are debating the principle underlying the amendments, and I join other noble Lords in urging the Government to respond to them sympathetically.
Lord Pearson of Rannoch: I too should like to support these amendments. Indeed, the only reason I did not put my name to them was that I was beaten to the draw by my noble friend Lady Strange. I then hoped that some noble Lord or noble Baroness from the Benches opposite might add his or her support and I did not want to take up the last remaining slot on the Marshalled List. I say this also because it is clear that the amendments are in no sense party political, nor do they attempt to favour any particular religion or branch of religion. Indeed, they can even be said not to favour the religious at the expense of the secular. For instance, Amendments Nos. 26 and 55 merely require the new chief inspector to keep the Secretary of State informed about the spiritual, moral and cultural values of schools, whatever those values may be.
With the greatest respect to my noble friend the Minister, at Second Reading she made one error in her otherwise sustained and brilliant summing up of the debate. She said the Government did not think that amendments along these lines were necessary because their scope was already covered by Section 1 of the 1988 Education Reform Act and therefore that Clauses 2 and 9 of the Bill would require inspectors to report not only on the mental and physical development of pupils but also on their spiritual, moral and cultural development. The trouble is that Clauses 2 and 9 of the Bill do not seem to mention Section 1 of the 1988 Education Reform Act, although I accept that that is the Act, with its attendant national curriculum, which forms the background to the Bill.
So I am afraid I am not entirely convinced that my noble friend was right when she said that Clauses 2 and 9 of the Bill do definitely require inspectors to address these aspects of the curriculum as well as the other more academic subjects. Indeed, my noble friend went on to say at Second Reading that the new inspectors would not be limited to looking only at the formal curriculum and they would also be able to report on the so-called hidden curriculum, which includes the values covered by these amendments. I am afraid that that is all beginning to sound rather optional.
I was confirmed in this doubt by something my noble friend said this afternoon. I say that because I suppose it can be claimed that the chief inspector is directed to report on the matters covered by this amendment by Clauses 2(5) and 6(5) because the 1988 Act is part of government policy. When my noble friend was debating the effect of Clause 2(5) and Clause 6(5) she was at pains to emphasise that chief

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inspectors only had to have regard to such aspects of government policy as the Secretary of State might direct. That does not sound as though these values will necessarily be covered. As I understood it, it was an important part of the Government's explanation of Clause 2(5) and Clause 6(5) that they were not prescriptive.
It seems that these amendments would remove any doubt as to whether inspectors will have to report on the spiritual, cultural and moral ethos of schools. I would go further and say I am afraid that if this amendment is not on the face of the Bill and if there is any gap left at all, the required reporting may not take place. That would be a great disadvantage to everyone—to those of all religious persuasions and to secular humanists alike. After all, the 1988 Education Reform Act rightly seems to put the spiritual, moral and cultural development of pupils before their mental and physical development. Most of the debate on this area of the Bill will understandably be concerned about their mental development. It will be about league tables, and the academic curriculum; it will be about socio-economic backgrounds, raw data and so on. But all those things have to be set against the background of the deeper values which parents hold and which they wish their children to develop. Above all, parents must be told what the deeper values of a school are or they will never know whether they want their children to go there. That is why I support the amendments.
9 p.m.
Baroness Warnock: I support some of the amendments but not all and I hope that they will not necessarily be considered together. There is an enormous difference between, on the one hand, asking a school to explain its plans for the spiritual development of children and, on the other, asking the inspectors to report on what they think the school's provision is for the imaginative and moral development of the children in that school. I fear that most schools, if asked to produce an outline of what they hope to offer their children, will say much the same, except that some may say it within the context of the Jewish, Roman Catholic or Moslem faith. When it comes to plans for children's development, all schools tend to say something about the "development of the full potential of the-child". I have yet to see any school not say something rather meaningless like that.
However, if teams of inspectors are not able to report on the bad when they see it—and of course on the good, but it is much easier to identify the bad in this context—and they are not entitled to be listened to when they make their reports, then their powers will be unduly limited. For my part, I am not interested in whether parents are informed about a school's plans for their children. As I say, all schools probably say much the same. I am interested in parents having access to inspectors' reports which may comment unfavourably on some aspects of the school; for instance, a proneness to bullying, an indifference within the school to people from other ethnic backgrounds or the predominance of a specific ethnic
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background in the school. That is important and should fall within the powers of the inspectors. The Secretary of State should be obliged to listen to those reports.
I should therefore prefer to separate the amendments which refer to the last part of the Bill, which is a matter of no importance, from those which refer to the first part which concerns the powers of the inspectorate. On that I strongly support the amendment.
Lord Elton: Any prospectus of a school which is silent on matters of its moral and spiritual standards is deficient in a crucial and important area. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Warnock, that it is more than likely most schools will put honeyed words in such a prospectus. However, the first thing is to get them there and the second is for the inspectors to see whether they add up to more than honey.
It is worth saying at this stage that, even if there are provisions that mean in some tortuous way that the requirements to provide that information and to enforce inspectors' reports on it exist, the time is ripe for it to be said again by the Government of this country, of whichever party. It is not only the process of senescence which makes me feel that things are not as they used to be in the spiritual and moral tone of the country. One only needs to look at the mores relating to marriage or financial probity to see that standards have considerably declined. Those are the standards imposed by people who were once school children and who gained many of their life views in the classroom.
My second point in regard to the group of amendments is that, like the right reverend Prelate, I see that they abut on the question of the teaching of denominational religions as described in the Bill. However, it is not improper to consider the two separately. I hope to return today week with a couple of amendments relating to the relevant part of the Bill—Clause 14 and Part II of Schedule 1. It is nevertheless possible, without any power of entry into any lesson taught by any teacher who is taking a period of religious instruction—denominational or otherwise—to obtain a clear idea of what the spiritual and moral standards of the school are. Some emanate from the classroom but most emanate from the staff as a whole and are not necessarily even consciously taught by them.
Educationists refer to something called "affective curriculum". The affective curriculum, in layman's language, means things that are taught by mistake or unconsciously. A great deal is taught in schools by mistake or unconsciously and is much more readily perceived by people on the outside than by those who have been inside the school for a long time. Schools can develop their own inward culture which becomes more and more divorced from that of the country at large.
I hope that the Minister will look kindly on the amendments, which may not be perfect. They are right in intent and almost right in drafting. I hope that the Minister will agree that a matter of this importance should be included on the face of the Bill and not be left to the operation of existing but forgotten machinery.
Baroness Faithfull: Perhaps I may make a short, practical, down to earth contribution to the debate. I support the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, in his amendment.
Some years ago I worked as a care committee worker for the then London County Council in Bermondsey and Islington. As such, parents would often tell me that they wanted a special kind of school for their child. They wanted to know which school had the qualities they had in mind. I would ask what they required and time and again they would say, "My son is not clever. I do not want him to go to a clever school. I want him to go to a school where he is happy and will not get into trouble. Where is that?". I would suggest the school around the corner but they would say, "No, those children are too clever. They abscond every day and still manage to reach the top of the class. I do not want my son to be out of school. I want him to be in school. I want him to be happy and I do not mind whether he is clever or not".
Somehow or other we must put into the prospectus in a practical way help that parents can understand.
Lord Peston: We are indebted to the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, the noble Baroness, Lady Strange, and the right reverend Prelate the Lord Bishop of Guildford for tabling these amendments.
I say to the noble Lord, Lord Pearson of Rannoch, in agreeing largely with what he had to say, that the only reason that my name is not attached to the amendments is that I was hoping the Government would find it possible to accept them or agree to come back to them. In that regard I did not believe that it would be helpful to add my name. That does not mean that I am not very much in support of what has been said here.
I entirely accept the philosophical disjunction which the noble Lord, Lord Beloff, has put before us; namely, that on the one hand it seems very odd that we are asked to consider spiritual, moral and cultural values, and on the other we are asked to go in for competition in the area of inspection. He knows better than I that when one is dealing with a Bill one does the best one can in the circumstances. What one is trying to do is improve matters relative to what they would be otherwise.
I also agree with the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne. Although I would prefer words such as "ethos" and "philosophy", it is more sensible to stick to language which is already in legislation, assuming that it means precisely the ethos and philosophy of the school. I hope that we are all reasonably pluralistic. I believe that was the point that the right reverend Prelate made—that is to say, that we do not want to lay down only this set of cultural values. We are interested in the idea that the school should have some knowledge of cultural values of almost any kind as long as it has grasped the point. I believe that is what we are being directed towards.
I very much support what is being said here. That is connected with the remarks made by my noble friend Lady Blackstone concerning a balanced curriculum. We should not be talked out of the argument that there is no need to put the provision on the face of the Bill. After all, the efficient management
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of financial resources appears as a specific duty in the Bill. If that is so, then we should not be talked out of including spiritual, moral and cultural values. It is not a question of either the noble Lord, Lord Elton, or myself becoming prematurely senescent. It is simply that if we believe something is tremendously important, especially within this Chamber, I do not believe that we should persuade ourselves that it is inappropriate to include it in an Act of Parliament.
I know all the clever arguments about why not do this or that. However, occasionally we should say that a particular matter is important to us and we would like to see it on the face of the Bill. We believe that the Government might indulge us to some extent. I like the words suggested, but if the Government prefer to produce their own I am willing to wait to the Report stage to hear them. This is an area where Members of the Committee have a moral duty to intervene and say that we would like this provision as one of the duties of the inspectorate.
Baroness Seear: I have great difficulty over these amendments. Nobody is going to disagree with the idea that in theory one should support them. The problem is this: how on earth are the inspectors going to make a proper assessment? How can one avoid individual bias being introduced to an evaluation of these qualities in the schools? It is not like financial matters or a subject which is being examined. I sat here trying to imagine what I would look at if I were trying to carry out an inspection myself. How can one find out about these matters? How can one be sure that, with one's own set of values—which one cannot pretend not to have—one would not be picking out certain things which are particularly relevant to oneself? It is the objectivity of dealing with these matters which bothers me and not that we should not be trying to make such an inspection. Would it be a really objective inspection? It is not of the same order as inspecting the other aspects of the curriculum. I may be wrong, but I find this matter very difficult.
Lord Peston: Perhaps I may rise a second time and speak again. For once I disagree with the noble Baroness, Lady Seear. I do not visit schools as often as I used to. It does not take very much to discover that a school has no objectives other than getting some children through examinations without thinking too much about them. There is no ethos, culture or philosophy present at all. I honestly do not believe that this is a very difficult problem. I should have thought that assessing financial management was a good deal harder. I have been in schools which seem to be cultural and, more importantly, philosophical deserts, yet they achieve quite good examination results. I do not believe the problem is as difficult as the noble Baroness says.
That is why I originally liked the word "ethos". It does not take very much to establish the ethos of a school. I do not believe that the average inspector would find it that hard to say that a school is all right; it has the right ethos. On the other hand, it would not be difficult for him to ascertain that a particular school seems to be doing other things and it simply does not feel right. That is the point at issue here. I am not

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worried about prejudice and I speak as someone whose views on a number of these matters are different from those which I have heard from other Members of the Committee. I am not worried. I believe that one can tell what is going on in a school. Perhaps we can debate this subject on another occasion.
9.15 p.m.
Baroness Blatch: I am in the happy position of treasuring the moments spent in listening to the noble Lord, Lord Peston, waxing lyrical about spiritual and moral dimensions to education. I have some interesting memories of the discussions about the 1988 Act. I should like to deal with the amendments of the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, and his desire to add what he deems are new purposes to the work of the inspectorate and registered inspectors reporting on spiritual, moral and cultural values.
Despite what my noble friend Lord Pearson has said, I am advised that it is not necessary to introduce a specific requirement to report on schools' values in this way. These are already covered under the duty of the inspectors to report on educational quality. Educational quality is a broad concept which completely embraces the 1988 Act's requirements for the curriculum, which these amendments reflect—that it should be balanced and broadly based, promoting spiritual, moral, cultural, mental and physical development in preparing pupils for adult life.
I am sure noble Lords who have read HMI reports will be aware that these aspects of the school's life—to use a shorthand term, the "ethos" of the school—are now fully dealt with in HMI reports, which lay considerable importance on the way in which schools work as communities and the values they demonstrate. I am confident a new chief inspector will build such requirements into his guidance to all registered inspectors. I have to agree with the noble Lord, Lord Peston. I believe that one can comment in a very objective way about the ethos of a school in this way.
I have been impressed with the points made by all noble Lords from all sides of the Committee. Indeed, all noble Lords will know from what I said at Second Reading and what I am about to say now that I am sympathetic to the objectives behind these amendments. I should like to think more about the matter and about these amendments before Report stage and possibly to consider bringing back amendments in a similar vein.
I should like to make two points in doing that. We might be better advised to stick to the 1988 Act formulation and ask inspectors to report on the spiritual, moral and cultural development of pupils. They will in doing so report on the values of the school; but I think the 1988 Act formulation sits more happily with the notion of inspectors basing their reports on evidence drawn from observation of pupils' progress, rather than what they are told about the school's value system.
I should also like to consider whether we should extend this section to include the social development of pupils—also reflected in Section 1 of the Education Reform Act. That might be the way of tackling some
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of the worries of my noble friend Lord Elton to ensure that behavioural and other aspects of the school are fully covered in reports. I would be happy to discuss that thought with him if he would find it helpful. I hope in the light of that assurance the amendments to Clauses 2 and 9 will not be pressed this evening.
I turn now to the noble Lord's desire to see that information is published covering the values adopted by schools. I imagine that the noble Lord would intend the information which would be required under Amendment No. 187 to be published in a school's prospectus, as information specific to a particular school. No extra power to require this information is necessary—the Secretary of State can already make regulations under the 1980 Act covering the content of prospectuses.
Schools are already required to publish a statement of their curriculum aims, and to summarise that in their prospectus—in most cases that already sets out the school's values very clearly. I have to say to noble Lords, with a note of scepticism, that putting that in aims and objectives is one thing, but actually being objectively measured against those aims and objectives is very much another matter. That is one of the thrusts behind these amendments. But we are certainly prepared to consider extending that duty to cover values more explicitly, along the lines of the noble Lord's earlier amendment. The mechanism for doing that would be by regulations. On that basis, I hope that the noble Lord will not press his amendment at this stage.
I have more difficulty with Amendment No. 192 which relates to the information which may be required to be collected and published under Clause 16. Clause 16 is intended to allow for the publication of comparative summary tables. I cannot at present imagine how the complex nature of each school's values can be summarised in a way suitable for inclusion in such tables. That was a point touched on by my noble friend Lord Beloff. I am sure that the right place for this information, as for the other contextual information about the school, will remain the prospectus. Therefore I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, will think again about that amendment.
In response to a point made by the right reverend Prelate about combined inspections, it is worth again recording that the Bill was amended in another place to allow more readily for the kind of combined inspections which the right reverend Prelate favours. The noble Baroness, Lady Seear, was anxious about the 1988 Act and the requirements of that Act for schools to provide for the spiritual, moral and cultural development of pupils. Before schools were required to state aims and objectives, there was a difficulty. Now, once those aims and objectives have been stated one can go in in the first instance to see whether a school measures up to their own aims and objectives. But more than that, the 1988 Act is quite specific about the moral, cultural and spiritual development of pupils. It is possible for an HMI, through the registered inspectors, to make an objective comment in that way. My anxiety still remains for providing that kind of comment in league tables, comparing one

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school with another on a yardstick. That might be more difficult. On the basis that between now and Report stage I am certainly prepared to be industrious on these matters, I hope that the amendments will not be pressed.
Lord Northbourne: I am much encouraged by what the noble Baroness has said, particularly by her acknowledgment of the fact that, although, arguably, counsel may have given the opinion that the provision is not necessary, nonetheless it might still be better to write it down. That is what I hope we shall be able to do at the next stage of the Bill.
The noble Baroness made one point to which I should like to refer. I acknowledge that current HMI reports normally treat these issues, but we are now into a new ball game both in terms of schools opting out and of the restructuring of HMI. There again is the reason why I should like to see the provision on the face of the Bill. With those remarks, and reserving the right to bring the matter back if necessary, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord Dormand of Easington Lord Dormand of Easington moved Amendment No. 24:
Page 2, line 2, at end insert ("and the staff employed to work in those schools").
The noble Lord said: This amendment will improve the balance of Her Majesty's chief inspectors' functions. At present, Clause 2 refers only to the quality of education, educational standards and the efficient management of financial resources. I say "only" but I do not say that those matters are not of great importance. The words "employed to work" will cover both teaching and non-teaching staff.
When a similar amendment was moved in another place the Minister, Mr. Eggar, said that there was no intention to encourage HMCI not to comment on these matters, though he described those matters as "important". That was his word. He justified that view by saying that it was impossible to list all the matters that HMCI might wish to cover. Of course it is impossible to cover every aspect, but this amendment stresses that financial and human resources must be managed efficiently and that it is most important—fundamentally important—that it should be in the Bill.
We are questioning whether, without an explicit duty, the office of HMCI will have the appropriate expertise to inspect the quality of school management. Why should financial resources be singled out when this other aspect is equally important? The management of financial resources is obviously very important, but this amendment focuses on human resources—teaching and non-teaching staff—being efficiently managed.
Staff management is such a well established practice these days that it is astonishing that the Government do not give it its proper place in such an important measure as the Bill. Concern about the quality and efficiency of management in schools has been expressed for some time. The latest report of Her Majesty's senior chief inspector for England for 1990–91 has commented strongly on it. It should be
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remembered that HMI's main strength lies in classroom observation of teaching and learning. It is highly likely that the new duty of HMCI to ensure the efficient use of financial resources will require additional staff with new expertise.
We believe, similarly, that significant expertise in other management areas should also be brought into the office of HMCI. The first report of the School Teachers' Review Body has also drawn attention to the importance of management's role in obtaining maximum benefit from the performance of all school staffs. Therefore, everyone seems to be in step on the matter except the Government. It is difficult to see how the Bill's aim, among other aims, about the efficient management of financial resources can be detached from the efficient management of human resources. That being so, it is surely sensible—and, indeed, necessary—to spell it out. That is the purpose of the amendment. I beg to move.
Baroness Young: I am sure that we all listened very closely to the remarks made by the noble Lord, Lord Dormand of Easington. However, on reading Clause 2, is it not clear that there are other qualities about which the chief inspector will have a general duty to keep the Secretary of State informed; namely,
"the quality of the education … educational standards … and financial resources"?
If he is looking at all those matters, the chief inspector will inevitably be looking at the staff in schools. I am sure that the noble Lord will be the first to acknowledge that the quality of education provided in a school will be largely measured by the staff, both teaching and non-teaching. That is what keeps it going. The same would apply to the educational standards.
As regards the financial resources, I should have thought that the major expenditure of any school would be on the staff. That must be right. Therefore, although it is not explicit on the face of the Bill, it must surely be implicit in these three paragraphs in Clause 2(1). Although I take the point that has been made, I think that the amendment is probably unnecessary. However, I shall listen to what my noble friend the Minister has to say on the matter.
Lord Elton: In replying to my noble friend, I hope that my noble friend the Minister will bear in mind that the management of staff does, as my noble friend suggested, have a close bearing on the quality of the education delivered. It is not only a question of seeing that the right staff are in the right room for the right length of time, and that the right length of time is taken for preparation, and so on; it is also the question of the much more delicate, difficult and important aspect of management involved in building a staff which feels that it has a stake in the management of the school and in the policies and standards which the school is evolving and enforcing. Very different results can be obtained from the same staff under different leadership, according to whether the leadership is entirely dictatorial or laissez-faire, or whether it involves getting the staff as a whole to develop a policy and indeed to support each other in enforcing that policy.

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I only interject that point because I hope that my noble friend is taking advice and will carry a message back to the department that that is an aspect of school management which is now seen to be of very great importance though it has not, I believe, traditionally been seen as being so important in the past.
Baroness Blatch: The amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, which was supported, and spoken to, by the noble Lord, Lord Dormand of Easington, would require the chief inspectors to report on how well staff are managed. The Bill requires them to keep the Secretary of State informed about the quality, standards and efficiency of school education. Many factors will affect those aspects of education—for example, the way in which staff are managed, the availability of resources, the quality of the teaching staff and the state of the buildings. We really cannot spell out each of those aspects on the face of the Bill.
It is absolutely inconceivable that one could make judgments about the quality of education without including the aspects mentioned in the amendment. I must assure the noble Baroness that HMI will be able to report on any and every factor which contributes to the performance that it observes, including the nature and quality, as well as the efficiency, of staff management.
Certainly, we would expect the chief inspector, as HMI now does, to keep under close scrutiny how the staff, both teaching and non-teaching, are being used. That point was well made by my noble friend Lady Young. The quality of teachers and how they are managed within a school, and the leadership provided by the head, have been shown consistently to be crucial factors in determining the success of schools. I think that we can rely on the chief inspector to keep my right honourable friend well informed on all those matters.
Of course we hold teachers in high esteem. We are not implying otherwise by not accepting the amendment. Our reforms have demonstrated our concern to raise standards in various ways. We have given schools clear goals to work towards in the national curriculum and greater independence to manage, to which teachers have responded well. It is only this Government who have been prepared to make teachers' pay and conditions the subject of independent review and we have shown in this latest award that we are prepared to stand by what that review says. It has taken time to repair the damage which irresponsible leadership inflicted on teachers' standing with the public, but there is now greater acceptance than ever before of the need to raise the standards of our children's education and of the vital role teachers play in that.
I assure my noble friend Lord Elton that I shall continue to give thought to the point that he has raised. But, in the meantime, I believe that that is such a statement of the obvious that it would be impossible for the chief inspector or the inspectorate to carry out their duties without being concerned not only about
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the efficiency and effectiveness of teachers but about how they are managed within the schools. I hope that the amendment will not be pressed.
9.30 p.m.
Baroness Seear: I take the point that the Minister has made, but the fact remains that the amendment is an attempt to emphasise the need to look at staff other than teaching staff and, as the noble Lord, Lord Dormand of Easington, said, to consider staff management and the organisation of staff.
I do not think that many people would disagree that in the past many, many schools have been rendered much less efficient than they need be because of the inadequacy of their administrative arrangements, administrative back-up and all the other things that are associated with the efficient running of an organisation. We all know that teachers can be expensive filing clerks and that they have totally inadequate support for the kind of work that goes on in any large organisation. We desire people employed in all grades and dealing with all aspects of school work to work together to make the school efficient as a whole. We do not seek to concentrate solely on the academic side. That is the point behind the amendment. From what the Minister said, I think that she is probably in agreement with that, but in the past this has often not been the case, despite the inspections. Emphasis has been placed only on the academic side, not on all the support services or administrative and managerial arrangements that make for an efficient school.
Baroness Blatch: Although I appreciate the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, does she not agree that the system that we are putting in place goes about as far down the road as we possibly can towards having whole-school inspections that incorporate all the aspects of school life to which she referred? If we started to single out one aspect of that requirement for the inspection, we would end up with a detailed, prescriptive provision on the face of the Bill to cover all aspects of an inspection. The points that the noble Baroness has made are not lost. They are provided for in the Bill. The difference between us is whether to single out one aspect of school management on the face of the Bill.
Baroness Seear: This is not an amendment that I wish vigorously to pursue, but this is an opportunity to refer to the overall administration and management of schools, which have often been seriously defective.
Lord Dormand of Easington: Both the Minister and the noble Baroness, Lady Young, referred to the difficulty of making these provisions explicit on the face of the Bill. I realise that that argument is used frequently by the Government, and I perfectly understand it. However, those of us who support the amendment are saying that these days management is sufficiently important to be on the face of the Bill. That is the point that we are trying to make.
I draw a strong distinction between professionalism in teaching and professionalism in what we now choose to call "management". Those of us who know

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something about schools know of teachers who are simply brilliant in the classroom but who are perhaps not quite so brilliant outside it, with a certain lack of organisational ability. That is something that we should consider. I do not have the slightest doubt that management is one of a range of factors that has to be taken into consideration—I am pleased to see the Minister agreeing with that. That is especially the case nowadays when we have schools that some people may consider to be too large. I am thinking of comprehensive schools that have perhaps 1,000 or 2,000 pupils. Management is an essential ingredient if such institutions are to achieve their maximum educational effect.
On a number of occasions in wide-ranging debates when I have asked the Government to provide additional resources, arguing that this is the only way to improve whatever the issue was, I have been reminded from that Front Bench, "This is not the only ingredient. The other thing is good management". That is one of the reasons why I am enthusiastic about this amendment. We ought to be considering it in that light. I hope that I have at least sown a seed—the noble Baroness has nodded several times —so that something might come out of it at a later stage. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Baroness Blackstone Baroness Blackstone moved Amendment No. 25:
Page 2, line 3, after ("efficiently") insert ("and effectively").
The noble Baroness said: In moving Amendment No. 25 I am speaking also to Amendments Nos. 28, 54 and 56. Definitions of economy, efficiency and effectiveness are given in the statutory code of audit practice for local authorities which is prepared by the Audit Commission in accordance with Section 14 of the Local Government Finance Act 1982. At the risk of being a bit didactic, perhaps I may say what they are.
"Economy" may be defined as the terms under which the authority acquires human and material resources and for economical operation acquires those resources in the appropriate quality and quantity at the lowest costs. "Efficiency" may be defined as the relationship between goods or services produced and resources used to produce them. An efficient operation produces the maximum output for any given set of resource inputs or it has minimum inputs for any given quantity and quality of service provided. "Effectiveness" may be defined as how well a programme or activity is achieving its established goals or other intended effects.
It is a matter of particular concern that the Bill makes no reference to effectiveness and only to efficiency. Amendments Nos. 25 and 54 are designed specifically to rectify this. While it is important to use financial resources efficiently—and we on this side of the Committee endorse such a goal—it is even more important that they should be used effectively. So, for example, if quite inappropriate methods are being used to teach children of a particular age group—methods which are either suitable for a much younger age group or perhaps for a much older age group—
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pupils will not learn effectively. It should surely be a general duty of the chief inspectors to look at effectiveness as well as efficiency.
Amendments Nos. 28 and 56 relate to the specific duties of the chief inspectors. A central part of their responsibilities ought to be to promote economy, efficiency and effectiveness in schools. The schools should be both helped and advised to secure value for money and to be efficient in matters such as the use of equipment and of accommodation and in the deployment of staff. But again it is also important that they operate effectively in all these respects.
I hope that in reply the Minister will not say that these amendments are not necessary. They are necessary. Without them too much of Her Majesty's Inspectorate's work will be taken up with keeping registers of inspectors, monitoring privatised inspection systems, reviewing them, making sure the inspections lead to adequate reports and, worst of all, encouraging competition, and not nearly enough time will be spent by the chief inspectors and their staffs monitoring standards in the schools themselves. I beg to move.
Baroness Perry of Southwark: I find this amendment a little puzzling. It is certainly refreshing to find someone emphasising the importance of effectiveness as well as efficiency, but I cannot imagine how the chief inspector and Her Majesty's inspectors could report on the educational standards that are achieved and the quality of educational provision without indicating how effectively the resources are being used. It would be strange if an HMI report were to emerge which said that the financial resources were managed efficiently, the educational standards achieved were high, the quality of education provided was excellent, but we were unable to draw the conclusion from that that effective use was being made of the resources.
If the Bill were to require the HMCI to speak about efficiency only, of course the amendment would be necessary. If the Bill were merely requiring HMCI to report on educational standards and outcomes, the amendment would be necessary; but as all three elements are in place, I am puzzled to know why there is a need for an additional definition of "effectiveness". Surely "effectiveness" is covered by the first two requirements.
Baroness Blatch: I am grateful to my noble friend Lady Perry for speaking from her tremendous experience of these matters and for replying succinctly to the amendment. As my noble friend pointed out, it would hardly be possible to report on educational quality and standards without also illustrating the effectiveness with which resources are used in the general sense of showing what effect they are having on the educational progress of the pupils within the school. I must therefore resist the amendment as it makes no useful addition to the Bill's general wording.
Amendments Nos. 28 and 56 reflect the aim of the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, to promote economy, efficiency and effectiveness in schools. The amendments apply only to England. I am sure that

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was an oversight on her part. The noble Baroness shakes her head, and I have to assume from that that she did not intend the amendment to apply to Wales.
Baroness Blackstone: I moved Amendment No. 25 and spoke to Amendments Nos. 28, 54 and 56. I believe that the Minister will find that Amendment No. 56 applies to Wales.
Baroness Blatch: I am referring to Amendments Nos. 28 and 56. The Government have of course been in the forefront of the drive towards greater economy—I understand from an aside that there is a misprint in the Marshalled List—efficiency and effectiveness in all sectors. The amendments are inappropriate. They would give the chief inspector a duty to promote economy, efficiency and effectiveness in the education provided by schools—in effect, a policy-making role. Such a role should be for my right honourable friends the Secretaries of State, not for the chief inspectors.
The distinction is an important one. The chief inspectors are there to observe what the system is doing, on the basis of much more detailed evidence than has been available before; to draw conclusions as to how schools are performing; the reasons for that performance; and to report to government. Of course in reporting to my right honourable friends, the chief inspectors would look to see how the schools met the objectives of economy, efficiency and effectiveness. They will be free to suggest to my right honourable friends how greater economy, efficiency and effectiveness could be achieved, and to offer those views to a wider public. Deciding on the policies needed to promote those matters is properly the province of the Secretary of State. Again, I hope that the amendment will not be pressed.
Baroness Blackstone: I am grateful to the Minister for her reply. It is a little odd to pick out the need for efficiency but not effectiveness. That is why we felt that there was a need for amendments. The noble Baroness, Lady Perry, seemed to be saying that we do not need Clause 2(1) (c) because the matter is all wrapped up in Clause 2(1) (b) in relation to the educational standards achieved in schools. I listened carefully to what the Minister said. I should like to think about it, and perhaps come back on Report. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendment No. 26 not moved.]
Lord Dormand of Easington Lord Dormand of Easington moved Amendment No. 27:
Page 2, line 3, at end insert:
("(d) the overall level of funding of the maintained system of education, the morale of teachers and the effects of the introduction of new legislation;").
The noble Lord said: In moving Amendment No. 27 I wish to speak also to Amendment No. 55A. I move Amendment No. 27 because the functions, as identified for HMCI, are too narrow and are in part designed to serve the political interests of the Government. Clause 2 gives the general duties of HMCI. Collectively, they reduce the remit of HMCI to that of a body that could only report on what goes
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on in schools and how schools individually conduct themselves, but not on the overall health of the maintained system of education. It is essential surely that HMCI has an overall brief. This amendment seeks to give HMCI that remit.
Three areas are defined in this amendment: the funding of the education system; the morale of teachers and the effects of new legislation. Those three areas have been subject to major public and professional concern during recent years. If HMCI is to be able to obtain a balanced view of the whole education system, those areas must be included in a chief inspector's remit.
Ministers may argue that Clause 2(1) (a) and Clause 2(2) cover the three specific areas in the amendment. However, comparison of the chief inspector's 1991 report entitled Standards in Education 1989–90 with his successor's 1992 report entitled Education in England 1990–91 shows that the present discursive approach restricts the scope for year-on-year comparison.
The 1991 report, for example, said much more about morale whereas the 1992 report said more about the effects of legislation. That position is simply inadequate and should be corrected. The three matters referred to in the amendment are fundamentally important, having regard to the form and structure of education in this country. They have all given rise to widespread debate and, in the opinion of some people, to considerable dissatisfaction.
I find the Government's repeated assertion that teachers' morale is high to be so far removed from reality that I wonder who they talk to. The amendment refers to new legislation. The biggest single concern among teachers—I believe this is also the biggest concern among many parents —is the number of directives and policies which shower down on schools. However, the Government seem blissfully unaware of that. Even the most dedicated teachers do not seem to know the direction in which they have to go. I suggest to the Committee that this matter is the biggest single cause of teacher resignation at the present time. There is a great need for an extension of the remit and this amendment seeks to achieve that. I beg to move.
Lord Ritchie of Dundee: I wish to associate Members on these Benches with the proposed amendment. The noble Lord, Lord Dormand, has covered everything that I wish to say. The amendment refers to the funding of the maintained system of education; to the morale of teachers and to the effects of new legislation. Those three areas sum up the malaise of our education service over the past few years.
At one time teachers were subjected to sustained attack. I know that they themselves did not behave well in certain pockets of unfortunate areas. Nevertheless the great majority of teachers have worked conscientiously for the benefit of their pupils and they have been crushed by the bad opinion of the public. That bad opinion has largely been caused by the press and, to some degree in the early stages, by the Government. Those attacks are still continuing. Not long ago an article in a Sunday newspaper attacked

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poor achievements in the three R's at the primary stage of education. Those poor achievements were attributed to the teachers. A research project recently carried out by the National Foundation for Educational Research has disproved that theory. It attributes the slight decline in the three R's at a certain age—I believe that it has been noticed since 1987—to the effects of children being raised in one-parent families and to the effects of unemployment. It does not mention teaching methods, good or bad.
The amendment sums up the three elements in our education service with which we should be most concerned. It would be no bad thing if the new inspectorate were empowered to discuss such matters and was not confined in its remit.
Baroness Blatch: I am surprised by the interpretation of the noble Lord, Lord Ritchie, of the NFER report as indicating that the decline in reading standards since 1987 was due to one-parent families and unemployment. That certainly was not my reading of the NFER report. The report said that there was no one single reason and there were many contributory factors. It was quite wrong for the noble Lord to say that. It would be an insult to young children to say that because they come from one-parent families therefore their chance of achieving a good reading standard is somehow diminished. The competence of teachers, the way children are taught in school, the whole ethos of a school and the atmosphere as regards learning which is created in a school must be constituent elements affecting the ability of young people to learn, whatever their background. We must get away from the tendency to slot young people into compartments and blame all ills and lack of learning on their background.
Lord Ritchie of Dundee: Perhaps I may correct the noble Baroness. I said that the report did not blame any particular method of teaching. There may be many other reasons for the decline but it was not the result of any new methods of teaching reading.
Baroness Blatch: I commented on what I heard the noble Lord say. He said that the NFER report was of the view that the reasons for poor reading standards were one-parent families and unemployment. I read the report and I read it very differently.
I should like to put on record the fact that from this Dispatch Box I have never joined in the attack on teachers. I can claim to be guilty of having joined in the attack on what I believe was poor leadership of teachers which prevailed for a long time. Teachers were ill-served by that leadership. I agree with the noble Lord that the majority of teachers are very hard-working and highly professional and we should be proud of the work they do in our schools.
The noble Lords wish the chief inspectors to report on schools' level of funding, teacher morale and the effects of new legislation. Those are important matters. They do, indeed, affect the quality, standards and efficiency of our education service. It will be essential that the Secretary of State is kept informed
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about them, but they are not the only matters of such importance and it would be inappropriate to add them to the Bill in this way.
We have not added to the Bill the competence of teachers and other staff because, as I argued in relation to Amendment No. 24, once we single out any one factor which is to be inspected by the inspectorate then we exclude others. It seems to me that we either go down the road of very detailed prescription or we leave it to the professionalism of the inspectorate to inspect a whole school and to take all those aspects into account.
As we have made clear in earlier debates, Clause 2 offers a general statement about HMCI's national duties. While I can appreciate that noble Lords wish to add to the general duties their own particular interests and concerns, they must recognise that the Bill cannot and should not attempt to determine a detailed job description or action plan. That would not be the right way to preserve HMI's independence and to recognise HMI's professionalism. The chief inspector will he free to look at and to report on any factors affecting quality, standards and efficiency, including those mentioned in the amendments. That is as it should be. I must resist the amendment accordingly.
Lord Dormand of Easington: From the first part of the Minister's speech I thought that she supported the amendment. Indeed, she did; it was only in the latter part of her speech that we heard the Government's apparently final view on the matter. The noble Baroness said that we could discuss individual aspects of the education structure. Perhaps I may remind her that only a short while ago we had a long debate on the spiritual, moral and cultural values of schools. That is an important aspect; I would not disagree with her. The amendment proposes that the three matters mentioned are of great importance. Without them we are talking about a two-legged stool.
I do not see how HMIs and the Secretary of State can produce the high standard or what most would consider the necessary standard of education without these matters being reported upon. It is an extremely disappointing reply. Had it not been for the late hour, the amendment might have been pressed to a Division. But in the circumstances, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendments Nos. 28 to 31 not moved.]
Lord Ritchie of Dundee Lord Ritchie of Dundee moved Amendment No. 32:
Page 2, line 13, at end insert ("appointing the inspector from the register who will inspect any individual school").
The noble Lord said: I shall speak briefly to this amendment. The disquiet felt by the education world, much of the public and many parents about the proposed plan by the Government can be summed up briefly. But first let me say that this amendment might be acceptable to the Government because it retains the idea of private inspectorates with a commercial basis, which is the main thrust of the Bill.
The fears and anxieties about the scheme are, first, the threat of amateurishness and the consequent lack of authority on the part of the inspector teams. Secondly, there is the inappropriateness of having a

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commercial basis for school inspections. There is the fear that schools will choose the cheap option and teams will tailor their reports to suit the schools, so getting the business another day. Educationists are also concerned about the lack of nationwide consistency that existed under HMI. Indeed, its inspections have been far less frequent than one could have wished, but it produced annual surveys—which have recently been published, thanks to the work of the present Government—giving a nationwide view of the state of education. I do not see how that will happen so effectively with the new scheme.
There is likely to be a lack of continuity. As I understand the matter, the governing body of a school may choose a different inspector team every time the school is inspected, in which case there will be a new set of inspectors arriving every time. They will not be able to pick up the earlier threads but will have an entirely new approach and will say different things. It seems to me that a school will find that most confusing.
There may be a lack of continuing support, advice and development. For instance, in my county of East Sussex schools are very dependent on continuing contact with the local authority, which has paid repeated visits and given advice and continuing support. I do not see how that can take place under the new scheme.
There is also the danger of educational bias. One inspector team may be more interested in one aspect of education—shall we say, the arts—and another team may be more interested in another aspect, perhaps the sciences. There may even be racial or political bias of one kind or another, which could be very dangerous in inner city areas, for example. I do not know how the inspector teams will look into particular aspects of school work as HMI has done over the years. For example, it made a survey of teaching mathematics to primary school children. How will such things be achieved?
It seems to me that all those aspects of school inspection are covered or are on the way to being covered by the present system. As I have said several times this evening, all that needs to be done is to build on the present system rather than destroying it and setting up an entirely new scheme which will take at least five years to begin to become effective.
Control by HMCI as suggested in this amendment would at least help to reduce the risk of damage by removing the direct link between schools and inspector teams. We fear most the cosiness and collusion that may build up. The suggested scheme whereby schools are inspected via the authority of HMCI removes the inspector teams to arm's length from the schools. I believe that that is most important. I beg to move.
10 p.m.
Lord Renfrew of Kaimsthorn: The amendment is the first of a series of amendments that address the problem which many on all sides of the Chamber have recognised. The noble Lord, Lord Ritchie, used the term "cosiness". There is a widely felt anxiety that if
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the governors of a school are simply free to appoint their own registered inspector from the list of registered inspectors, sometimes a cosiness will develop and the breath of fresh air which the system is intended to offer in producing an unbiased report on the school may not develop. Many of us agree with the point at which the noble Lord begins.
I draw attention to this circumstance. There is a series of amendments which address the same issue. Amendment No. 32 solves the problem by providing that the chief inspector simply appoints the registered inspector who will then conduct the inspection in the school. Amendment No. 38 adopts broadly a similar response. No doubt later we shall discuss my amendment, Amendment No. 40, and those grouped with it. It adopts a different approach. It allows the governors to get on with the appointment but provides a monitoring role for the chief inspector who can send in an assessor and, where necessary, veto the matter. Amendment No. 116—it will be moved on another day by the noble Lord, Lord Dormand of Easington—produces a different scheme in which the chief inspector would nominate the short list and leave the school governors to choose whichever they consider appropriate from the short list.
No doubt we shall have a long discussion about the amendments in sequence since they are not grouped together. I hope that it is not inappropriate for me to point out now that, although we speak to the amendments separately and no doubt will vote on them separately, one precludes the other. If we adopted Amendment No. 32 it might not be appropriate to adopt Amendments Nos. 38, 40 or 116. It is perhaps relevant to mention that.
Amendment No. 32 has a technical defect. It leaves Schedule 2 floating. It amends the Bill in one place but leaves the provisions for tendering and so on unmodified in Schedule 2. In order to work, Amendment No. 32 would need to be followed by appropriate amendments to Schedule 2 which have not been laid down. It is a technical point which no doubt can be remedied.
The more general consideration is the best way to proceed. If one goes to the trouble of providing a system of registered inspectors with the hope that there will be some independent insights into the school inspection process so that one has a range of variety, there is the serious risk that, if the chief inspector first registers the registered inspectors (he has his hand on the matter there) and proceeds to appoint the registered inspector who shall inspect the school, the matter is so much under the control of the chief inspector that the elements of variety and fresh insights which the system might have the capacity to offer will be denied. In a more general sense that is why the amendment may not provide the ideal solution, although many of us agree that the noble Lord has put his finger on a central problem.
Lord Peston: My name appears on this and at least one other subsequent amendment referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Renfrew. I agree that there are several ways of trying to solve a problem which we believe gives rise to a fatal flaw in the Bill. The fatal flaw is that the schools should be able to choose their

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inspectors. That proposal is ridiculous and it has appeared to us to be ridiculous from the first time that we saw it in the Bill. It remains ridiculous.
Perhaps I may take as an example—not one which I wish to go into in detail—the opted-out school in East London and the troubles that it is currently having. The suggestion that that school should choose its own inspectors seems to be so far-fetched as clearly to indicate why the Bill is fatally flawed. This Bill will enable that school to appoint its own inspectors and that is exactly what it does not need.
Having said that the Bill is flawed, our problem is how to get into it to improve it. I believe that the amendment represents at least one way. I do not wish to press it at this time, nor shall I press Amendment No. 38, because I wish to hear the arguments put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Renfrew, in respect of his amendment. There will be other days on which we can consider these matters, depending on what we hear from the noble Lord and from the Government.
The amendment appears to me to provide a way worth considering. After all, inspectors do inspect at present and therefore it is not entirely out of the question that Her Majesty's Chief Inspector can select inspectors and say, "These are the ones who will do the inspections". It is not an impossible state of affairs, although I understand the criticism made by the noble Lord, Lord Renfrew. The reason for tabling the amendment at this stage is that I should like to hear the Government's argument about why they do not believe that it is the right way into the Bill. In other words, I am trying to persuade the Government to put forward an argument as to why schools should choose their own inspectors.
That is the provision that I do not understand and have not understood it from the beginning. It makes no sense and it is completely incompatible with the notion of independent inspection. "Independent inspection" means that someone else inspects a school. I was enormously impressed by the noble Baroness's winding-up speech on Second Reading, in which she endeavoured to justify choosing one's own inspectors. However, the argument simply does not wash. If I want to know whether a school has been properly inspected I want someone else to choose the inspectors. The one body which I do not wish to choose them is the school. That is the most obvious and logical point and with that I support the amendment.
Baroness Blatch: My noble friend Lord Renfrew has spotted the fact that on its own the amendment is wholly defective and will require a number of consequential amendments to make sense of what the noble Lord, Lord Ritchie, wishes to achieve. It is a variant on those which we shall be discussing later. To some extent we are speaking in a vacuum because we do not have before us for consideration the amendments tabled by my noble friend Lord Renfrew.
The noble Lords, Lord Ritchie and Lord Peston, are pressing what I believe are in effect wrecking amendments. They are seeking to substitute a centralised regime for that which we are establishing under the Bill. They would require HMCI to appoint a registered inspector for every individual inspection
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—more than 6,000 every year. It would appear that the noble Lord, Lord Ritchie, would prefer an Audit Commission system with contracts placed centrally. However, the Audit Commission does not deal with anything like 6,000 contracts a year—a few hundred are dealt with at the most. If school inspection on the scale now planned were to be managed centrally we should be setting up an enormous bureaucracy. It would be an office filled not by HMIs but by administrators.
Of course we could have a random allocation of inspectors to schools in order to save money but that would be wasteful. Why go to such lengths to set up a negotiated but centralised system with registered inspectors acting in effect as HMIs' agents when the same results can be had from the model set out in our Bill? The answer is as we heard on Second Reading; it hinges on the need to avoid collusion and soft reporting. I agree with all that has been said about that and I identify with the anxieties expressed. However, I believe that there are more constructive ways of addressing that particular point.
On Second Reading we heard a rather more positive suggestion for dealing with that anxiety from my noble friend Lord Renfrew, who has now tabled amendments which will allow a chief inspector to guide and monitor the process by which governors choose inspectors. That may require more inspectors. We would much rather have that than an army of bureaucrats. That would offer professional help to governors as well as keeping an eye on how they use their discretion. It keeps governors at the centre of the process. I hope that Members of the Committee will support my noble friend's amendment in due course.
The issues which divide us on these amendments are fundamental. They relate to the new role of governors and our confidence on this side of the Committee that the right place for key decisions to be taken is in the individual schools. Members of the Committee opposite pay lip service to that proposition. They want the LEA (or if not the LEA, the HMI) to make decisions about inspections. I note what the noble Lord, Lord Peston, said about one school governing body which is having difficulties at present. That difficulty must be addressed, but it is no reason for saying that we cannot trust governing bodies to be involved centrally in the process of determining who shall inspect their schools as long as the chief inspector properly determines a registration system, qualifications for registration and, indeed, a register and puts into the public domain criteria by which schools are inspected.
There is no doubt in my mind that the right people to commission an inspection report on a school or, for example, to commission a management consultant's report on a business, are those responsible for acting on the report. I entirely accept that the public nature of the inspection process adds a tension which requires additional safeguards. A number are already built into the Bill: HMI's registration and monitoring, governor accountability and greater openness. When we consider the amendments in the name of my noble friend Lord Renfrew, we may add further safeguards to allow the chief inspector to oversee the selection of

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inspectors. However, the need for safeguards does not detract from the central argument that if inspection is to be a positive force and is to feed into the cycle of planning for progress, it is best arranged at school level. Only in that way shall we gain the maximum benefit from the greatly increased inspection activity which we propose to secure the highest standards which we all agree are so necessary.
As regards the point which the noble Lord, Lord Ritchie, made about the LEAs and what will be their future role the local education authorities will retain £65 million—about half of their current spending—to spend on inspectors and advisers who will offer their schools advice. They also employ an additional 3,000 advisory teachers. All those aspects can continue under the Bill. Indeed, published inspection reports will give schools a greater incentive to seek and follow good advice and will enable local authorities to properly target their efforts on the basis of the information obtained from the inspection reports. They will be able to make much more effective use of their local advisory service. I hope that the noble Lord will not press the amendment.
Lord Ritchie of Dundee: I have taken on board what the Minister said. I moved this amendment because I thought it was interesting and might be one way of solving the problem with which we are all faced. As I say, I have taken on board the Minister's objections to the amendment. I shall read what she said and think about it.
I believe that something on these lines must be the answer to the problem which is worrying us all. We are all waiting to hear what the noble Lord, Lord Renfrew, says in moving his amendments. In the circumstances, I shall not press the amendment, and I beg leave to withdraw it.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord Elton Lord Elton moved Amendment No. 33:
Page 2, line 14, at beginning insert ("establishing the standard criteria for judging work in the school and").
The noble Lord said: Amendments Nos. 33 and 34 relate to different questions in England, and Amendments Nos. 59 and 61 relate to similar issues in Wales. I shall speak to them together.
The first amendment of each pair is brought forward by the desire to have an explanation from the Government as to how the inspectorate will carry out its overall function relating to the whole country. Hitherto we have had a slightly larger inspectorate dealing with England and Wales. This amendment provides for slightly smaller inspectorates dealing separately with the Kingdom and the Principality. They are nonetheless large areas in which there may be large variations of quality and even objectives of education.
We have now agreed that it is the function of the inspectorate to inform the Secretary of State what education may be like in each area—what its objectives and qualities are—and even to offer him advice thereon. But at the moment it is not clear to me how Her Majesty's Chief Inspector through his inspectorate will ensure that registered inspectors,
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who may well be peculiar to the West Country, the North East or Dyfed, accept certain basic norms everywhere. If we do not ensure that, there will be unacceptable variations. Variations upwards are acceptable but variations downwards are not. Therefore, the first amendment—which is a probing amendment—is to insert a provision on page 2 at line 14 so that the Chief Inspector for England shall in addition have the specific duty of
"establishing the standard criteria for judging work in the school".
I believe that wording has its origin with the National Association of Head Teachers.
I do not press the amendment but I hope that the noble Baroness will be able to tell me, first, how the criteria are to be established countrywide. Secondly, if that answer is not particularly convincing or satisfactory I would ask the Government to consider whether in subsection (3) (b) the inspector should be empowered to give directions rather than guidance so that at least he has the power to establish uniformity of standards throughout the multiple-registered inspectorates up and down the country.
10.15 p.m.
Baroness Blackstone: I speak to Amendments Nos. 35 and 61 in this group. There seem to be two important issues here. First, inspectors should know in writing what is expected of them when a school is inspected. Secondly, schools should also know what to expect. The Bill places a duty on Her Majesty's Chief Inspectors to give guidance to registered inspectors. As that guidance is likely to be crucial to the effect that an inspector has on a school, and also the basis on which inspectors are removed from the registers, there should be formal consultation on the advice.
It is unfortunate that Her Majesty's inspectors have not published their inspection procedures for HMI reports. This could lead to suspicions that some Inspections—and I can give the example of Culloden school in Tower Hamlets earlier this year—have been done for partisan political reasons and not in accordance with established criteria. Another example is that HMI frequently reports statistical information in its reports which is not gained from the schools themselves but from data previously reported to the Department of Education and Science. It is sometimes rather difficult to follow precisely how the inspectorate obtained the data.
These amendments would require a code of practice to be published by Her Majesty's Chief Inspectors after public consultation. The code of practice can then be seen as a protection to inspectors against political interference either from chief inspectors or from anyone else, and also as a protection to schools from perhaps over-zealous inspectors.
In Committee in another place the Minister of State argued against a statutory code so as to give maximum flexibility to Her Majesty's Chief Inspectors. Yet he acknowledged that there should be a "national system with national standards". It is rather surprising that something central to the whole business of inspection and of standards expected of registered inspectors—

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the code—should be left for the chief inspectors to devise and perhaps amend at will, apparently in the interests of flexibility.
Baroness Denton of Wakefield: I appreciate the thinking behind my noble friend's amendments, and his concern that HMCI should have sufficient power to ensure that registered inspectors meet the necessary high standards of inspection and reporting, and use common criteria in assessing schools. Indeed our reforms would be worthless without such an assurance—we might as well stick with LEAs establishing their own criteria and reporting (or not) as they see fit.
I do not think my noble friend need be concerned that the Bill as drafted is deficient in that respect. It is true that subsection (3) (b) of Clause 2 refers to the giving of guidance to registered inspectors and others. But the provisions which give teeth to this guidance are to be found in Clauses 10 and 11—the power to set conditions of registration and to remove any inspector who breaches them.
I imagine that HMCI will want to set quite detailed criteria for the inspection process. Indeed, if the mass of evidence to be collected centrally is to be of value, common forms as well as standards of reporting will be essential. For the first time such criteria will be publicly known. It is not only LEAs who have failed to make their criteria as explicit as they should be, as the noble Baroness pointed out HMI still has some way to go in telling schools about the standards against which they are to be judged and the way in which that will be done. The Bill will require a new openness; that is its major strength.
I imagine that complying with the guidance and criteria will be one of the standard conditions of registration, so that HMCI will have the degree of control he or she needs to remove an inspector who fails to meet the necessary standards.
I appreciate that my reassurances in this respect must sound tentative because, in the absence of a chief inspector, we cannot say with certainty how he or she will choose to operate. But I hope that I have said enough to reassure my noble friend that criteria can be established and effectively imposed on registered inspectors through the Bill as drafted.
The noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, said that inspectors and schools should know the standards. However, she suggested a rather burdensome procedure which is not only interested in ensuring that the HMCIs have the power they need; but also tries to tell them how to do their job. I am sure that we all want HMCI's guidance, which may take a variety of forms, to be widely promulgated and open to informed discussion. I am sure that the chief inspector will want that also. Indeed it is difficult to see how the chief inspector could operate otherwise.
Where I must differ from the noble Baroness is in her desire to set the guidance out in a single "code" which is to be presented to Parliament. That is a cumbersome procedure. It implies that whenever the chief inspector wishes to amend in any detail the guidance offered, the "code" has to be rewritten and represented to Parliament. And, under the amendment, any such change would trigger the need to consult on the new document.
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Parliament should have no role in approving the code—that would be quite inappropriate. And we do not accept the implication that the code is a proper matter for Parliament to comment on in any detail. I hope that my noble friend does not press the amendment.
Lord Elton: Either I have misunderstood my noble friend's reply or she has misunderstood my amendment. My anxiety was not about every inspector being of equal quality with every other inspector, which is what her reply was addressed to, as I understand it. My anxiety was addressed to the question of the same standards of excellence as regards mathematics, geography, hockey or whatever. The same yardsticks or comparators should be used around the country. That has nothing to do with the fitness of inspectors at all.
Perhaps I may elaborate that by drawing the attention of my noble friend to Clause 10, which is concerned with the kind of person who is registered, whether he is a fit and proper person, whether he will be capable of conducting inspections as required and, if conditions are imposed on him, whether he will be capable of conducting inspections subject to those conditions. As I read the Bill, the conditions relate to the capacity, characteristics and qualifications of the inspector. They are not conditions placed on how he will inspect or what standards he will use when he gets into a school. I am concerned that these doubtless equally excellent people inspecting in Yorkshire and Cornwall shall have the same view of what is a satisfactory standard of behaviour, level of learning and management in each of the schools they visit.
If one has a different registered inspector, or group of inspectors, competing within the North-East from those competing in the South-West—which is more than probable —I do not see any means of imposing some national standard of acceptability other than the following: either criteria should be published by the chief inspector, as suggested in the first of each of my pairs of amendments, or the chief inspector should have the power to direct, as suggested in the second of each of my pairs of amendments. Therefore, my noble friend has not satisfied me at all because she has not answered my anxieties.
Baroness Denton of Wakefield: I am sorry that I have been unable to satisfy my noble friend with my initial reply. I said that an inspector will be registered as a result of complying with the guidance and criteria which the HMCI will set up. The control is in that stage.
Lord Elton: Will my noble friend forgive me? Where in the Bill are the guidance and criteria to which she is referring? If she is referring to Clause 11, then I do not believe those provisions do what she suggests they do. If they are somewhere else I have not noticed them and I apologise.
Baroness Denton of Wakefield: The guidance is in Clause 2(3) (b). It is the registration of inspectors to meet that guidance which will provide the control of standards.
Lord Elton: I am sure that someone else will have something to say. The long pause is even longer than that of the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, when looking for her first pair of amendments, which set a precedent earlier on. I am deeply grateful to her for that relief which she has given me. It is guidance, but it has nothing to do with Clause 10. I believe my noble friend to be saying—I shall be much more persuaded by it—that if an inspector either scandalously or frequently ignores guidance under Clause 2(3) (b), then when he comes to re-registration under Clause 10, his chances of being re-registered are minimal. He will remember that when he is considering ignoring the
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guidance that he has been given. If those are the teeth, they are somewhat soft, but at least they are teeth. I shall think very carefully about what my noble friend has said. I do not find it enormously compelling but it may be sufficient to persuade me at a later stage.
Baroness Denton of Wakefield: I hope that my noble friend will see in due course that the teeth are quite solid.
Lord Elton: I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendments Nos. 34 and 35 not moved.]
10.30 p.m.
Lord Skidelsky Lord Skidelsky moved Amendment No. 35A:
Page 2, line 15, leave out ("on matters of good practice").
The noble Lord said: In moving this amendment, I shall speak also to Amendment No. 61 A. There are two thoughts behind this amendment which apply to any form which Clause 2(3) (b) finally takes. The first thought is that the phrase,
"on matters of good practice",
is redundant. It is hardly necessary to enjoin the chief inspector to give good guidance or directions, whichever is preferred, pertaining to inspection. Provided the standards of inspection are clearly specified, that is all that is needed. "Good guidance" is a redundant phrase.
Secondly, I find the phrase "good practice" objectionable in itself. It is nearly always used in the sense of best practice. It easily degenerates into "best practice". In fact it was used by the noble Lord, Lord Rochester, precisely in this sense. That suggests that there is a unique, privileged practice which is accessible to experts and no one else and which is based on scientific principles of one kind or another. I am afraid that as applied to education it is simply not true, though it is a common delusion that it is.
Those of us who took part in the great education debate will know only too well that much of what is called good practice is simply current educational fashion masquerading as scientific authority which is largely spurious. Indeed some of the so-called good practice of recent years has been directly responsible for the decline in reading standards in primary education, a fact which is now well documented.
The analogy which is often made between teachers and doctors is simply not right. Most of us would agree that there is good and bad practice in surgery, but we all know also that there are as many effective practices in teaching as there are teachers. I should be much happier if inspectors inspected inputs and outputs rather than being asked to pass judgments on the competence of teachers and the effectiveness of teaching methods. I know how easily that can become a dogma of good practice which becomes a strait-jacket and actually stops further development.
I am sure that the chief inspector will give excellent advice or indeed instruction on these matters, whichever he is called upon to do. But I urge the Minister not to give greater currency to a phrase which is philosophically suspect and has for many of us very unfortunate connotations. I beg to move.
Baroness Blatch: I am attracted to the points that have been made by the noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, and also by what he said in favour of his amendment. It would remove from the face of the Bill the specific suggestion that the chief inspectors must give guidance on matters of good practice in relation to the carrying out of school inspections and the writing of inspection reports. I take his point about subjective judgments of what is or what is not good practice. What we want are objective reports about what is going on in schools and some judgment about the quality of performance of what is going on in our schools.
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I hope the noble Lord will be pleased to hear that I am persuaded that the amendments would benefit the Bill. They are in keeping with the independent role we are giving the chief inspector under the Bill. They give further emphasis to the fact that it will be entirely the chief inspector's responsibility to decide on the nature of the guidance he gives. I thank the noble Lord for his thoughtfulness and I hope that the Committee will join me in accepting the amendments.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
[Amendment No. 36 not moved.]
Baroness Blackstone Baroness Blackstone moved Amendment No. 37:
Page 2, line 17, at end insert:
("(bb) providing the inspectors with a model specification for inspection which he shall prepare following consultation with persons representative of local education authorities").
The noble Baroness said: In moving this amendment I shall speak also to Amendment No. 62A. A standard of inspections should be established for all inspections within the same area. It therefore makes sense—indeed it is appropriate —that Her Majesty's Chief Inspectors should prepare a model specification after consulting with local education authorities in different parts of the country. The noble Baroness said that she thought that my previous amendment was too cumbersome and that Parliament should not be involved in agreeing a code of practice. I hope she will agree that this amendment is rather simpler. It certainly does not involve Parliament.
The amendment tries to ensure that common standards of inspection can be arrived at across the country through Her Majesty's Chief Inspectors preparing a model specification for inspection. However, the chief inspectors will need to consult LEAs in order to ensure that the model specification reflects local needs. I know the Government cannot bear the thought that LEAs should ever be consulted on anything, but perhaps I can persuade the Minister that in this matter they have something to give in terms of their local knowledge and understanding.
The amendment would enable schools to be inspected to a common standard in a given area. The inspection could reflect the local education authority's curriculum priorities as set out in the statement that it must make under Section 17 of the Education (No.2) Act 1986 which provides that local education authorities must state a policy.
Without an amendment of this kind there will be no consistency of standards expected between schools. In those circumstances, how can parents or indeed teachers in any way assess the meaning of an inspection report? Indeed I would argue that they could be seriously misled by the outcome of different school inspections around the country because there was no consistency. They might even be misled within the same area. Even though the previous amendment, which dealt with similar matters, was not acceptable, I hope that the Minister will be able to accept this one. It seeks to ensure that we have consistency. I beg to move.
Lord Ritchie of Dundee: I should like to associate those on these Benches with the amendment. The

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noble Baroness has said all that is to be said on the subject and so I shall save the Committee's time by saying no more.
Baroness Blatch: I am afraid that we have yet another attempt to tie down the chief inspector—on this occasion to preparing a model specification for inspection. He may well want to do so as part of the guidance which is to be given to registered inspectors. But do we really need primary legislation to tell him his job?
If the notion is to set up more than 100 standards reflecting different local education authority policies, we certainly cannot accept the sentiment, let alone the drafting. I find bizarre the notion that the HMCI should be required to consult LEA representatives—and no one else —before drawing up any model specification. HMI has been in the business of conducting inspections successfully for rather a long time now, unlike many authorities. I am quite happy for the chief inspector to decide how and when to consult on and publish his guidance. The Bill gives him the freedom and the flexibility he needs. I hope that the amendment will not be pressed.
Baroness Blackstone: I find that reply completely unacceptable. It is typical of this Government's utterly dismissive and unfair view of local education authorities that they do not consider that LEAs should be consulted on what kind of standards should be set for the schools for which they are responsible.
The Minister suggests that it is wrong to pick out local education authorities. I could not disagree with her more. Local education authorities have a responsibility for running schools. Indeed they ought also to be responsible for maintaining standards. They have a great deal of local knowledge and are therefore in a strong position to advise on what a model specification might look like. It is also utterly absurd to suggest that this will lead to 100 difference models. It will lead to a very small number of models—indeed perhaps one model—in which there may be a small number of variations. Those could be associated with particular needs in rural areas or areas in Wales where the Welsh language is spoken.
However, I have no intention of dividing the Committee at this time of night. I shall think again and return to the matter on Report. What worries me is that the Government do not seem to care a jot that parents will find it very difficult to interpret what an inspection report means because there will be no consistency of standards around the country. There is no intention here to tie down inspectors; it is a fundamental matter which ought to be on the statute books.
Baroness Blatch: Before the noble Baroness concludes, I have two points to raise. First, she said that LEAs run schools. LEAs do not run schools. The days have gone when they ran them. Schools are now run by the heads and the staff and are overseen by the governors who have such responsibility. LEAs have a responsibility to see that there is effective education in
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the areas for which they are responsible. Moreover, if they are worried, they have powers under the Bill to go into schools to fulfil that responsibility.
Secondly, I should point out to the noble Baroness that we are arguing for consistency. The chief inspector will set the criteria for the whole country. We are entirely happy that that information is in the public domain and is understood by schools so that they know the criteria by which they are being judged. The avenue down which the noble Baroness suggests we should travel would, I am afraid, give way to inconsistency and a variable across the country. We are trying to get away from that; we want a constant standard. We rely upon the professionalism of the chief inspector to set that standard and to pass on, through HMI, the guidance for inspecting schools to the registered inspectors.
Baroness Blackstone: If the Minister is so anxious about consistency, there is a very strong case for putting something on the face of the Bill to ensure that that will happen. It is possible that the amendment before the Committee may not be perfect and that it may not be the best amendment that one can find to ensure consistency. I am afraid that I remain utterly convinced that the proposals in the Bill for privatised firms of inspectors to carry out inspections all over the country, without any clear statutory requirement for Her Majesty's Chief Inspectors to set standards, will lead to inconsistency and to parents being misled. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendments Nos. 38 and 39 not moved.]
Lord Renfrew of Kaimsthorn Lord Renfrew of Kaimsthorn moved Amendment No. 40:
Page 2, line 21, at end insert:
("(cc) monitoring, assessing and giving advice in connection with, the procedures followed by appropriate authorities in selecting registered inspectors to conduct inspections of schools in England under section 9;").
The noble Lord said: In moving this amendment, I shall speak also to Amendments Nos. 65 and 118. Concern was expressed this evening and on Second Reading by Members on all sides of the Chamber about the status of registered inspectors, especially their mode of appointment. The amendments deal with what was identified by the noble Lord, Lord Peston, as the central flaw of the Bill; namely, that one can easily imagine a situation arising where the governors of a school choose to appoint a registered inspector to undertake the inspection whom they are confident will put forward a report that will give them satisfaction. It need not be a matter of collusion, certainly not one of corruption. We are not making such suggestions; indeed, there are provisions in Schedule 2 to overcome the risk of corruption.
But let us imagine a school which is very traditional in its teaching methods but which, in the views of many, could do with a breath of fresh air. However, the governors of such a school might be inclined to appoint a registered inspector who was a traditional person so that he would produce a report which would support them, when in fact what the school really needs is a shot in the arm and some advice that there

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are other teaching methods which it could better apply. Various schemes have been put forward this evening for overcoming that difficulty. I hope that the Committee will find the scheme that I propose appropriate. My noble friend the Minister said on Second Reading that she thought that these proposals worked with the grain of the Bill, as I believe that they do.
Amendment No. 40 seeks to establish that the chief inspector shall have the role of "monitoring, assessing"—I should like to emphasise the word "assessing" and
"giving advice in connection with, the procedures followed by appropriate authorities in selecting registered inspectors".
That simply assigns a general responsibility to the chief inspector in that respect.
The nub of the group of amendments to which I am speaking comes in Amendment No. 118, which is an amendment to Schedule 2, in which the provisions for tendering are set out in more detail. In considering the amendment, it is perhaps appropriate to consider three eventualities. One is where the governors of the school, the "appropriate authority", are alert to their responsibilities and are looking to an inspection by a registered inspector who will bring something new to the school and publish an appropriate report on it. In such circumstances, there is probably very little difficulty and very little that needs to be done, but we cannot be confident that that will be the case. In such circumstances, however, the amendment simply provides for a watching brief for HMI. If all is going well, there will be no need for HMI intervention.
Secondly, however, there may be more difficult cases, where the chief inspector is not at all confident that the governors will choose a registered inspector who will bring the appropriate inspection to bear. They may well choose someone who is much too close to their own philosophy and personal experience. In such cases, the chief inspector can send in an assessor who will be a member of the inspectorate and who will be present during all the tendering, appointing and interviewing procedures, if such there be, when the registered inspector is appointed.
Thirdly, if the chief inspector or the assessor who will be present feels that an altogether unacceptable choice is being made, the amendment has teeth because the choice has to be approved in writing by the chief inspector and there is therefore a power of veto. Subsection (2) states precisely that: that the chief inspector would have a power of veto and that the registered inspector must be approved in writing by the chief inspector. Naturally, the chief inspector normally acts through a member of the inspectorate. There will be 6,000 such appointments per year and some inspectors will therefore spend much of their time acting as assessors. However, I am not suggesting that it will be necessary for an assessor to be present at every selection procedure, although that may well be the case at a good many.
Subsection (3) states:
"The Secretary of State may make regulations with a view to facilitating the discharge by the Chief Inspector of his functions".
That is deliberately vague so that we are not over-precise about the matter, but subsection (4)
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states what those regulations may do. It is not some kind of Henry VIII clause - or I very much hope that it is not. It states:
"The regulations may, in particular—
(a) require appropriate authorities to give the Chief Inspector such information as may be prescribed".
We now come to the nub of it because under paragraph (b) the regulations give the chief inspector or any member of his staff—I have in mind the assessor—the right to attend any meeting of the authority at which tendering or the selection of a registered inspector is under discussion. That would make it difficult for the appropriate authority —the school governors—simply to go it alone and to flout the views of the chief inspector in the matter. The noble Lord, Lord Peston, quite reasonably referred a moment ago to Stratford school. Under this head anyway, there would not be a problem with that or with any comparable institution. That is an important point.
There are the teeth there but one hopes that in general in most schools matters will he much more harmonious, and in such a case it means that the governors can look around seriously at inspectors, can interview registered inspectors if they wish and choose a registered inspector whom they feel will he appropriate. So that in favourable cases one does not have the monolithic orthodoxy that there might be if the inspectorate were always simply to send in the registered inspector whom they chose. That is where this amendment differs from the amendment we discussed earlier. I hope that it will recommend itself to noble Lords opposite and in particular to my noble friend the Minister. I beg to move.
10.45 p.m.
Baroness Young: I put my name down to this amendment, and I hope that it is one that my noble friend the Minister will feel able to accept. Not for the first time my noble friend Lord Renfrew has been positive and helpful on an issue which has exercised noble Lords from all parts of the Committee. Looking again at what was said at Second Reading, there was no doubt that there was considerable concern about this aspect, quite specifically over the role of governors and whether they would be in a position to make a wise choice of inspectors. I did not share all the doubts and anxieties that were expressed on that occasion but I recognise the concerns. It seems to me that this is a positive way of meeting those concerns, helping the governors where there might be a difficulty and getting us over this difficult proposition that governors might be tempted to choose inspectors who would simply come up with the inspection that they wanted to hear. Included in this is finally a power of veto, so it has teeth.
At this time of night I do not want to take up more time of the Committee and repeat the arguments so well set out by my noble friend. I hope that it is an amendment that will commend itself to all parts of the Committee. Having listened to the discussions on preceding amendments that also addressed the same point, I hope that it will be regarded as a positive

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contribution. It makes this a better Bill, and it will be of reassurance to a number of people who have had anxieties about this part of the Bill.
Lord Beloff: Everybody would like to be reassured, but in order to be reassured we have to understand what is being offered to us. I find it difficult to follow what the noble Lord, Lord Renfrew, has in mind. I did not understand the language he was using when he said "inspector". He said that the chief inspector can be represented at a meeting of the governors by an inspector or, it says in the amendment, by "any member of his staff". "Inspector" is used in two senses. There will be the surviving HMIs and there will be these registered inspectors. If it is the former, we were told earlier that there will not be a great many of them and they will have many and responsible duties. You cannot say to them "You have to go off to a meeting of governors at Cockermouth" or somewhere else they may find difficult. If it is to be a registered inspector, the new class, then they will be competitors.
Lord Renfrew of Kaimsthorn: Perhaps I may clarify that point. There is no intention that the inspector who would attend the meeting on behalf of the chief inspector when the tenders were considered would be a registered inspector. I did not say that, nor did I intend it. There is a complication when we use the word "inspector" sometimes as a registered inspector and sometimes as an HMI; but the answer is that it would be an HMI.
The noble Lord has put his finger on a point to which I should have referred. There is no doubt that there is an implication in my amendment that there would be a need that Her Majesty's Inspectorate should have within its number a greater number of HMIs than would otherwise be the case. I am not sure whether it is 30, 50 or 60. I shall be interested to know whether my noble friend the Minister can offer an observation there. My noble friend Lord Beloff is correct. There will be a commitment by HMI with regard to this function which would mean that there would need to be more inspectors than would otherwise be the case. That is correct.
Lord Peston: We agree upon what the problem is. I should like to believe that the amendments solve it. We should examine them to see whether they do. Amendment No. 40 and the Welsh counterpart, Amendment No. 65, are about principles: what the chief inspector shall have among his or her duties. The amendments provide an additional duty relating to the procedures in connection with the conduct of inspections. That will be at the general level.
Amendments Nos. 40 and 65 are sensible amendments, whatever else we may say. Whether or not they solve the problem we have in mind, they make a valuable contribution in terms of what the chief inspector's duties should include.
We then come to Amendment No. 118. I believe it does the job intended. I have to ask one or two questions relating to what the noble Lord, Lord Beloff, said and what the noble Lord, Lord Renfrew, said in reply. In Amendment No. 32 I was essentially
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suggesting that the chief inspector would choose from the list of possible inspectors who would do the inspection. The Minister said that that would be too bureaucratic and involve too much. Why is not this amendment equally bureaucratic? Why does it not involve the same amount of surveillance of what goes on? My amendment said that the inspector would be chosen by the chief inspector or his staff. Amendment No. 118 provides that an inspector will not be chosen unless the chief inspector agrees to the choice. I do not see much difference in the degree of bureaucracy. The chief inspector will have to do much the same work. I do not say that against the amendment. I am happy for the Government to accept an amendment from their own side rather than from my side. Amour proper is important to people. It does not bother me. I merely want to know what there was about my argument that does not apply in this case. That is one of my questions.
My second question relates to a point which always bothers me in this place because I can never remember what the words mean. Why does the amendment provide that the Secretary of State "may" make regulations" instead of "shall"? Why does the amendment not say, "the regulations shall, in particular"? Why is it "may"? I seem to remember asking this question in relation to another matter a year or two ago, but I cannot remember the answer. All my instincts tell me that the word should be "shall". I cannot see the point of using "may". Perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Renfrew, will tell us why the word "may" is used and not "shall".
To summarise, I hope that Amendments Nos. 40 and 65 will be acceptable in their own right. The crux of the matter is Amendment No. 118. I want to be told why Amendment No. 118 is less bureaucratic than Amendment No. 32. How many people would be involved? That is the point about which the noble Lord, Lord Renfrew, was asked. In the two important phrases "The Secretary of State may" and "The regulations may" I should prefer the word "shall" to be used. It was once explained to me that in this place "may" means "shall", but I cannot believe that the English language changes just within these four walls. But that is by the way. The amendment would be a great deal better with the word "shall".
Lord Skidelsky: I wish to make some constructive comments upon the amendment. It is a genuine attempt to meet the worries about the tendering process as now outlined in the Bill. However, I fear that the noble Lord's attempt does not go far enough in ensuring objectivity in tendering which is the key to ensuring the integrity of the inspections themselves. It is the danger of collusion which has most worried the Committee. To avoid that danger we need to secure two things.
First, we need to ensure that the specifications used by governing bodies in inviting tenders conform to a standard code of practice laid down by the chief inspector. We need this to ensure comparability of inspection reports and to prevent governing bodies from varying the criteria to be used by inspection teams. This requirement needs to be clearly understood in advance before we need to call in the

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assessor procedure, suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Renfrew, in doubtful cases. I agree with the comment that that adds a layer of bureaucracy to the whole procedure and I think much of that could be avoided by clarity in the specification tenders themselves.
As the Bill now stands, it seems to me there is a problem of consistency between specifications issued by schools for tender and specifications to inspectors issued by the chief inspector. After all, who employs the inspection teams? The governing body invites tenders on the basis of specifications. Unless those specifications are consistent with specifications issued to inspectors by the chief inspector, there will be a conflict. I do not think the Bill, as it now stands, completely avoids that possibility. I do not think that the noble Lord's amendment avoids that possibility either.
Secondly, the standardised criteria for inspection should be completely transparent. By that I mean that they should relate to objective inputs and outputs. I refer the Committee to the paper written by John Burchall which forms the basis of the present inspection proposals. I think that the Government essentially adopted the scheme from that paper. Burchall wrote that inspection should be based on objective information,
"relating the ability and attainment of pupils on entry to their achievements as measured by assessment and examination".
The idea is that the criteria for inspection should be as objective as possible and should use as much objective information as possible. In supporting the two requirements that I have just described, I do not mean that there should be no room for more subjective judgments of school effectiveness based on less tangible factors; I mean that the objective non-discretionary elements in any report should be clearly separable from the subjective elements. That is secured by means of transparent criteria.
The amendment standing in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Renfrew, does not in my view really secure the two requirements of standardised and objective criteria for tendering. I ask the noble Lord and the Minister to consider a more robust form of words, perhaps using "shall" rather than "may", that meets those two requirements.
11 p.m.
The Lord Bishop of Guildford: I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Renfrew, will be able to help me when he speaks further about this amendment. I want to be able to support it because it does seem to me that it tries to meet a concern that has been expressed on all sides of the Committee. But the more I look at the amendment, the more difficulty I have in envisaging how it will work in practice. The first part of it indicates that the governors of a school cannot engage finally with the inspectors without the permission of the chief inspector. They will, presumably, have been through the process of tendering.
At the end of that process the inspector may be put in a position of saying, "Though you have obtained tenders from at least two, perhaps more inspectorate teams, and although those are all headed by inspectors whom I have registered, I shall not let you go to the
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one you have chosen". That seems to place the chief inspector in an almost impossible position, having to deny the appropriateness of the people he has authorised. It is that process which leaves me in some difficulty.
The other aspect of the issue is that the more I consider the idea that the chief inspector may have to authorise every such inspection the more it appears that he may have to send one of his inspectors to any school which considers tendering. The bureaucratic load which worried us in relation to the earlier amendment seems to have become greater. It is almost unmanageable. I am beginning to wonder whether we cannot deal with the matter the other way round and think again about the possibility not of the chief inspector allocating one inspector to every school but of his offering a number of teams of inspectors from whom the school can choose one. That is not what is set out in the amendment but we are all struggling to find a way of adapting what the noble Lord, Lord Renfrew, has helpfully put forward and I still find it difficult to support his amendment as it stands.
Lord Renfrew of Kaimsthorn: Would it be helpful if I attempted to answer the right reverend Prelate now, or should I wait until my noble friend the Minister has made her observations? Which would my noble friend prefer?
Baroness Blatch: Perhaps my noble friend will accept my response to the amendment because he will then be able to pick up my points and others which have been raised in the course of the debate. I may also comment on one or two matters which have been raised during the course of the debate.
I shall take the right reverend Prelate's point first. He said that a school governing body might go through all the processes and, having secured the services of a qualified registered inspectorate of a minimum of two inspectors, someone might then criticise that process. We have said from the start that the Bill allows for that to happen. It allows local governing bodies to select from at least two qualified registered inspectors. It was because anxiety was expressed from all sides of the Chamber about that process, not excepting that they would necessarily be qualified registered inspectors—because they have to be qualified registered inspectors for this work—and because of the suspicion that something might go wrong with the process or that a particular inspectorate might be favoured for the wrong reasons, that my noble friend Lord Renfrew has worked industriously with my noble friend Lady Young to include a mechanism not only to allow schools to choose inspectors but also to witness that the process was followed properly and that the choice was made objectively.
My noble friends Lord Renfrew and Lady Young are to be congratulated on having put forward the amendments. They tackle the causes of the unease which some noble Lords felt about the very considerable burdens we were placing on school governors. Comments to that effect were made at Second Reading.

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The amendments build helpfully on the Bill's provisions. I do not accept the view that they in any way cast doubt on the wisdom of the governor-centred approach we have adopted or the quality of the inspectors whom the chief inspector will register. We have always said that the chief inspector will need to monitor the system. However carefully he forms his initial judgment about inspectors he will need to see that his view is borne out in practice.
The role for the chief inspector which my noble friends envisage will in effect bring his monitoring to bear at an earlier stage of the inspection process. That partly answers the right reverend Prelate's comments about HMI coming in at the end of the process. He will, of course, play a part in the process much earlier when tenders are being requested and considered, rather than as inspections are being carried out. That will be a time when governors may be in need of help and guidance as much as outside scrutiny. The amendments proposed seem to allow for that in empowering the chief inspector to offer advice on the way arrangements are to be made. They will also allow the chief inspector to see all the papers connected with the tendering process, as well as send his representative to meetings if that seems desirable. So he will be able to make sure that a fair and open choice is made, as well as a wise one.
I am glad that the route of regulations has been suggested, as I am sure that we must leave a good deal of flexibility in this process for the chief inspector. In the early stages he may well want to have his inspectors sitting in on most relevant governors' meetings. I expect that many governors would want that. As the system beds down that may be less essential and paper scutiny might suffice in more cases.
But whatever method is used, the chief inspector will have real power to back up his monitoring. He must approve every arrangement made. If he is not satisfied with the process followed or the choice made, he will be able to veto an appointment and the governors will have to start again. We believe that that will be very rare in any case. Nevertheless, it is a safeguard in the system in response to concerns of noble Lords.
I believe that this power effectively sweeps up the power which my noble friend Lord Beloff would have added to Schedule 2 to the Bill by Amendment No. 133, which will be moved at a later stage. The chief inspector will have the papers giving details of the inspection team, and may meet the team when it talks about its tender to governing bodies. He will certainly withhold his approval if he is not satisfied of its competence.
I recognise that the amendments of the noble Lord and the noble Baroness are not without a cost. Perhaps I may address that point now. If the chief inspector has these new duties, he will need the staff to discharge them, and I imagine that most of them will be Her Majesty's inspectors. So we are talking about the addition of maybe a further 40 inspectors—a doubling of the "monitoring" figure that we have been using for planning purposes. I have to say that our willingness to contemplate such an addition gives the
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lie to those who have always maintained that the real purpose of these reforms was to cut HMI numbers. We have always said that HMI must have the numbers needed to do the job required under the new arrangements. If the Committee agree to this addition to HMI's role, we shall ensure that the necessary staff are available.
The noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, raised an important point and one to which I certainly would want to give more thought. I shall leave my noble friend to respond. Commenting on the point that he made, the duty on the appropriate authority would be to arrange an inspection which met the terms of the Bill. The registered inspector must carry that out as required by the chief inspector's guidelines - or guidance, which is stronger. That would mean that each specification drawn up by the governors must have a common core, but it need not be exactly the same in every particular.
Under Amendment No. 40 the HMI would have a duty to give advice in connection with the procedures to be followed by appropriate authorities in selecting inspectors. That could well cover advice on a model core specification, coupled with the chief inspector's powers of veto under Amendment No. 118. We can be fairly sure that all specifications meet the necessary standard. That is my initial comment on what the noble Lord, Lord Skildelsky, said. No doubt my noble friend will also give his response.
The noble Lord, Lord Peston, referred to the bureaucracy and also asked what was the difference between central control, central selection and what we have in the Bill. I believe that my noble friend has found an ingenious way of retaining local choice. In other words, for each school inspectorate the process of choice must be gone through by each school. It will be a choice but it will be overseen, simply as a safeguard, by Her Majesty's Chief Inspector. So the choice and placing of the contract will remain with the governors. The amendment allows Her Majesty's Inspectorate to oversee that process, not to take it over.
My noble friend Lord Beloff was concerned about whether these people were registered inspectors or HMI, but the only staff that a chief inspector will have will be Her Majesty's inspectors. So the additional staff involved will be directly answerable and accountable to Her Majesty's Inspectorate. They will in fact be HMI staff.
The system that will be put in place will be for each registered inspectorate to meet the qualifications. They will have to conform to the criteria determined by the chief inspector. They will have to be subjected to the possibility of deregistration if they do not conform, if they do not come up to the standards that will be set out by the chief inspector. I believe that the amendments of the noble Lord, Lord Renfrew, provide the safeguards against possible collusion or improper selection of registered inspectors.
I had to speak strongly against an earlier attempt to change the Bill to give the chief inspector total control over the choice of inspectors. On the other hand, Amendments Nos. 40, 65 and 118 give the chief inspector rather stronger powers at an earlier stage of

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the inspection process, while leaving the general scheme of the Bill entirely as we intended it. The amendments do not take from the governors; they help and support them. They are clearly designed to build most helpfully on to our proposals and I shall be happy to accept them in that spirit.
Lord Renfrew of Kaimsthorn: I am grateful to the Minister for receiving the proposed amendments so constructively and in particular for outlining the cost which would accompany the proposals. It is a significant cost—the equivalent of some 40 HMIs who would be required to make the system work. I am also grateful to my noble friend Lady Young who supported me in the proposed amendment.
I shall seek to answer the questions raised. The Minister has dealt with many of them. First, in answer to the noble Lord, Lord Peston, I am not sure that it is bureaucracy or cost which militates against the proposal that the chief inspector would himself directly appoint the registered inspector. That was the form of the original amendment. The Minister has addressed directly the point that there is indeed a cost to the amendment that I propose. It is not bureaucracy in the sense of administration. One must consider the intention of the Bill and how it should work. If one has all the registered inspectors appointed by the chief inspector, one has a centralised administration which does not allow any variety of use. It begins to bring about that orthodoxy in educational doctrine which the noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, criticised when referring to the terminology of good practice.
If the chief inspector appoints all the registered inspectors from his own list he will impose a particular philosophy willy-nilly on all schools without the opportunity of variety and without any ranges of views which is one of the merits of opening out the system. That is the intention of the Bill.
I do not have as much experience of the Chamber as the noble Lord, Lord Peston. I am not sure that I can make any firm ruling on the matter. However, it seems to me clear that the chief inspector will make regulations because quite clearly there are matters to be regulated. I do not doubt that, although I do not believe that I am the person to offer definitive rulings on the distinction between "may" and "shall" as a matter of parliamentary drafting.
I believe that I have answered the question of the noble Lord, Lord Beloff.
Lord Peston: I had hoped that the Minister would deal with that point. "May" implies "may not". It is up to the Minister. If he chooses "may not" he makes all the amendments a nullity. I was hoping that the Minister would say that "may" must mean "shall", otherwise I cannot see the point of the amendment. It has to mean "shall".
Baroness Blatch: It may be helpful if I intervene at this stage. I am sorry if I missed that point. I shall do doughty fighting with my colleagues in the back room because the noble Lord is right. If the regulations will
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be made I have no objection to the word "shall", but I am bound to take advice on it and shall do so before the next stage of the Bill.
Lord Renfrew of Kaimsthorn: That is most helpful. I hope that the amendment may go forward as worded, and that there will be opportunity at Report stage for an amendment proposing "for 'may' read 'shall"' to which I should have no objection. I make that perfectly clear.
The noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, made some interesting observations. There are problems of standardisation in tendering. Indeed, I had some sympathy with some of the points in relation to standardisation which the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, made earlier. As the Minister said, the problem is to avoid being over-prescriptive. The points that the noble Lord made would be worth exploring further. I hope that the appropriate procedure might be to accept the amendment today. Then, perhaps, I may discuss the issue with the noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky. More relevantly he can discuss the matter with the Minister, who is clearly sympathetic to the point being made, to see whether some further phrase can be added—or whatever necessary modification—to bring in the notion of some degree of standardisation. I agree that it is the intention of the Bill that the report made about one school should be comparable in a useful way with the report made about another school. There is a notion of publishing data which will compare one school with another. Therefore, there is a clear need that reports should be comparable.
The right reverend Prelate asked how the system works. I hope that my noble friend Lady Blatch made that clear in her observations. As I see it, the notion of the assessor is the key concept. The assessor will be a member of the inspectorate but there need not be an assessor in every case. Perhaps we may start with the notion that there may be an assessor where that seems desirable to the chief inspector. If after the initial discussion—that is, the telephoning, the correspondence and questions of who will tender—the chief inspector is entirely satisfied that the matter is going well he may not need to send in an assessor. However, no doubt there will be a nominated member of the inspectorate to oversee this particular appointing procedure. In many cases, as my noble friend said, the governing body may well desire that there should be an assessor who will offer observations and in a constructive way help to make the appointing procedure successful. That is where the proposal has merit; it provides the opportunity of assisting the governors in their enterprise. In addition there is a power of veto. I hope that answers the point which the right reverend Prelate was making.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
[Amendment No. 41 not moved.]
11.15 p.m.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Cocks of Hartcliffe): If Amendment No. 42 is agreed to, I cannot call Amendment No. 43 because of pre-emption.
Lord Peston Lord Peston moved Amendment No. 42:
Page 2, leave out paragraph (e).
The noble Lord said: I had hoped that the noble Lord, Lord Beloff, would move his amendment first. My only reason for not wishing to speak first is that I believe I have had more than my fair share of the Committee's time. Since the argument can be put just as well by the noble Lord as by me, I was hoping that he would do so.
As regards this area, not others, some of us are puzzled about the point of encouraging competition. I believe that in most areas of economic activity competition is the way to achieve the desired ends and that monopoly is the way not to achieve them. My understanding of economics is that there are certain areas, usually those to do with quality and where quality itself is problematic, in which competition is precisely the way to achieve the worst outcome and not the best.
The noble Lord, Lord Renfrew, earlier objected to the suggestion that there was an ideological basis for some aspects of the Bill—at least he was claiming that was not true of himself. I had taken it for granted that subsection (3) (e) of the clause was included in the Bill merely for ideological purposes; that this Government could not put forward a Bill if it did not contain ideological gobbledegook, and this is it. I cannot see remotely how the encouraging of competition can in this case be compatible with the provision of quality. Indeed, I believe that almost the whole economic analysis of this matter will guarantee that competition will achieve the lowest rather than the highest standard. That is my objection to it.
My solution to the problem is to leave out paragraph (e), but in a way I defer to the noble Lord, Lord Beloff. I am quite happy with the concept of promoting efficiency in the conduct and reporting of inspections. But that is not achieved by encouraging competition; the reverse is the case. I look forward to hearing what the noble Lord, Lord Beloff, says.
Lord Beloff: Perhaps a proposal to delete competition comes more appropriately from a member of a party which in general favours competition. However, there are limits to that. On reflection, it seems to me that competition is very like nudity. In certain circumstances nudity is desirable and perhaps even essential. In other circumstances it is inappropriate and sometimes offensive.
This use of competition falls into the latter category because it suggests the application of something which our debates have already revealed is inappropriate for what we are doing. My noble friends Lord Renfrew and Lady Young come to the rescue of the Government, as they so often do, like the United States cavalry in an old Western. They do so because the Government need rescuing. Why do they need rescuing? They need rescuing because, as I said on Second Reading and I repeat now, at the heart of the Bill is a totally inappropriate use of competition.
I regret that the Minister has still not explained the purpose or the rationale behind this provision. The Government insist that at some point there must be competition between at least two teams of registered
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inspectors. My noble friend Lord Renfrew has tried—I do not object to his amendment because it is a gallant attempt —to rescue the Government. But why that method was chosen still remains a mystery. However, the Committee should be aware that there is a very widespread opinion across the Committee that it is an inappropriate matter to have at the centre of the Bill and that all the objectives of the Bill, which we share—namely, the raising of standards in part through the machinery of inspection—could have been achieved without that element. Since my amendment is pre-empted, I support the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Peston.
Baroness Seear: I support the amendment. I do not understand who is competing for what and why. Is there to be competition to carry out the best possible inspection and, if so, how do we know? I should like to ask who is competing for what and why.
Baroness Blatch: I am sorry that Members of the Committee are so strongly opposed to the notion of competition. It is worth reminding ourselves that this Bill will replace a system of LEA monopoly that has resulted in the present haphazard system of school inspection, in great variations in standards and practice and in a system which those on both sides of this Committee agree is in urgent need of improvement and reform. We have chosen to replace that system with one under which professional competence and standards are centrally assured but governors rather than LEAs can choose inspectors.
I believe that choice as a principle has served us well in many areas and that with the checks and balances secured under the Bill and provided by my noble friends Lord Renfrew and Lady Young will serve us equally as well in this respect. It is fundamental to the Bill that governors have a choice among inspectors—that they are not simply required to contract with those hired by their LEA or by anyone else or simply imposed from above. The chief inspector in overseeing the new system will want to make sure that choice and competition are a reality, and it is in Clause 2 that we have given him the statutory underpinning for any actions he needs to take in that respect.
I have been asked how I see the inspectorate acting to encourage competition and whether that will be an important part of their role. We are confident that a thriving open market will develop but the chief inspector will have a duty to watch over that market and make sure that governors have a real choice. That may entail encouraging new teams to start up in areas that are not well served or acting to thwart those who would seek to operate a cartel. In either case we do not expect that the duty will be much needed but it has to be there.
I do not share the view of my noble friend that it is a silly idea to use market principles in the inspection of schools. What we had before was in effect a monopoly for LEAs that led to inadequate systems, or even none at all, in too many authorities. Of course there is room for differences between registered inspectors. But I make it quite plain that we would not expect there to be wide divergencies between tenders. All inspectors will have to follow chief inspectors'

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guidelines to ensure consistency of standards, but there will be scope for different registered inspectors and their teams to respond in different ways to the priorities established for the school by the governing body; for example, to offer particular expertise or detailed investigation in addition to that required by the chief inspector.
We have to recognise that there are differences between schools and it is only right for those differences to be reflected by governing bodies in their specifications. We would not expect cost to be an unduly significant factor in the decision of a governing body. Nonetheless, it may well be the case that, of two good tenders, one offered better value for money than the other because one registered inspector was more efficient than the other in his preparatory work and in the writing of his report. The chief inspector's guidelines would ensure that corners were not cut in the inspection itself.
To sum up, we do not share the noble Lord's rejection of the idea of an element of competition in the inspection of schools, nor do we share the devotion of noble Lords opposite to the monopoly previously exercised by LEAs to the detriment of many of our schools. We believe we have provided for the inclusion of sensible notions of market forces while recognising that consistency of standards has to be achieved.
The noble Baroness, Lady Seear, asked who was tendering for this business. The answer is that a raft of qualified inspectors will have applied to the HMI and fulfilled all the appropriate qualifications for being registered as inspectors. They will be available to respond to the specifications determined by the governing body of each school. It is very important to keep at least some downward pressure on cost. There would be no limit on costs if inspectorates were just there for LEAs to use. Costs would have to be controlled centrally or by the chief inspector, the local education authority or perhaps somebody else. We believe this keeps a healthy downward pressure on inspectorates, all of whom would be qualified, but there would be some preferences declared by governing bodies. We believe that that choice is a healthy one.
Baroness Seear: In that case, is the noble Baroness telling us that it is a question of who among those who are qualified can put out the cheapest tender? One gets the tender down to the cheapest possible price so one can get the job.
Baroness Blatch: That was not what I said. I said there would be people out there with standard qualifications to inspect schools. Nobody who is not competent to do the job can be hired by a school. I have been a governor myself. I would expect governing bodies to make a number of judgments about which registered inspectors to employ. I would want to know how they would set about the inspection, which skills they would bring to bear and whether they could provide an inspection that was consistent with the specification for my school. One of the considerations in addition to all of those would be cost. If there were comparable people out there and one inspector could do it at a lesser cost than another,
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that would be a consideration. I would not be bound by the lowest tender but it would be important that a choice was made from at least two qualified registered inspectors. I do not believe that that is an unhealthy thing to ask. It would act as some control on keeping some measure of pressure on the costs.
Lord Peston: Members of the Committee will not be surprised to know that I find the answer of the noble Baroness completely unconvincing. It indicates that the Department of Education and Science does not understand the economics of competition at all. Competition works in two ways. First, it works in meeting the demands of the demander—in this case the governors who want a good report—and, secondly, by cutting price. Essentially, that is what competition is about—"Do I get the product I want? Do I get it as cheaply as I want?"
I can say to the noble Baroness that I was working in the area of competition before she could even spell the word "economics". Therefore if there is one subject about which I know, it is competition, and I advocated competition in many areas long before this Government ever thought of it.
This is one area where competition is precisely the wrong method to be used. It is an ideological method. There is no rational argument for it either, as the noble Baroness, Lady Seear argues. One is simply trying to save money. I do not blame the governors for trying to save money. They are short of money and there are other things on which they can spend it apart from inspections. That is perfectly clear, and exactly what we fear.
Further, the governors are not looking for adverse critical inspections which tell them what they are doing wrong. They want cheap inspections which tell them that what they are doing is right. It is all very well for the Government to go in for this competition model; it does not apply in the area of schools. There is no way that I shall convince the Government of that; they simply do not understand the subject or, rather, they are so ideologically committed that they do not want to understand the subject.
Baroness Blatch: I am grateful to the noble Lord for giving way. I want to refute most strongly what the noble Lord said. It will not be possible for a school to buy the kind of report that it wants. It will certainly not be possible to buy a subjective report because there would then be grounds for assuming that the HMI has not done its job properly in making sure that the correct selection was made by a school. Equally, it would certainly entail a breach of the standards laid down by the chief inspector. We have at least some confidence in the chief inspector and the HMI to keep professional standards high.
Lord Peston: We must not prolong this debate, but if that were the case then we may as well go along with the system as run by the chief inspectors. We do not need the competitive model if they are going to ensure that standards are met. That is precisely our point. One can obtain the desired result from the chief

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inspectors monitoring a system corresponding to and built on the existing system. The Government are simply introducing this for ideological reasons.
The noble Baroness argued earlier, and I accept it, that at this stage we should not be going through Second Reading arguments on this matter. I simply wish to demonstrate the Government's mistake. It is my view that the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Beloff, is better than my own. I shall therefore seek to withdraw my amendment with a view to hearing what he intends to do with his. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord Beloff Lord Beloff moved Amendment No. 43:
Page 2, line 28, leave out from ("England") to end of line 29.
The noble Lord said: We have not discussed or voted on competition. It is late. I hate being up at this hour of night listening to a nightmare of a Bill. Nevertheless, I wish to seek the opinion of the House.
11.39 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said amendment (No. 43) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 11; Not-Contents, 24.

Division No. 3

CONTENTS

Beloff, L.

Lichfield, Bp.

Blackstone, B.

Peston, L.

Chichester, Bp.

Ritchie of Dundee, L. [Teller.]

Cocks of Hartcliffe, L.

Russell, E.

Dormand of Easington, L.

Seear, B.

Graham of Edmonton, L. [Teller.]

NOT-CONTENTS

Annaly, L.

Johnston of Rockport, L.

Astor, V.

Long, V.

Balfour, E.

Mackay of Clashfern, L.

Blatch, B.

Marlesford, L.

Borthwick, L.

Perry of Southwark, B.

Brigstocke, B.

Renfrew of Kaimsthorn, L.

Cavendish of Furness, L.

Rennell, L.

Craigmyle, L.

Skelmersdale, L.

Denton of Wakefield, B.

Skidelsky of Tilton, L.

Elton, L.

Strathmore and Kinghorne, E.[Teller.]

Hesketh, L. [Teller.]

Hooper, B.

Ullswater, V.

Howe, E.

Resolved in the negative, and amendment disagreed to accordingly.
11.45 p.m.
Lord Dormand of Easington Lord Dormand of Easington moved Amendment No. 43A:
Page 2, line 29 at end insert:
("( ) In exercising his functions in connection with the system of inspecting schools under section 9 (so far as it relates to Wales, the Chief Inspector for England shall, in particular, have regard to the desirability of an equal standard being achieved in performing such inspections and in reporting such inspections so as to facilitate fair comparisons—

(a) between different schools providing education for pupils of similar ages in each locality; and

(b) between different local education authorities (as regards the schools maintained by them).").

The noble Lord said: In moving this amendment, I shall speak also to Amendment No. 68A. But I have to point out an error in Amendment No. 68A in that it should relate to Wales and not England, as stated in the text. The amendment states principles that should govern the HMCI's activities in supervising a competitive system of school inspections by registered inspectors. Clause 2(3) (b) requires the HMCI to give guidance to registered inspectors,
"and such other persons as he considers appropriate".
That category may include the governing bodies selecting registered inspectors. The amendment would influence the content of that guidance to governors and would emphasise that each governing body's right to choose its registered inspector should take place within arrangements to ensure that inspection reports for neighbouring schools were of equal standard. That is the nub of the amendment. This could then most easily be achieved by HMCI providing a shortlist of nominated inspectors for each locality. Indeed, there would be considerable advantages if inspection contracts were to be agreed covering groups of schools or even whole local education authorities.
It seems to me that the desirability of achieving an equal standard in inspection is self-evident. Apart from anything else, differing standards could give rise to considerable anxiety among teachers and parents and call into question the whole integrity of inspections. The amendment has considerable flexibility. It does not state that this should be done. It states only that the chief inspector,
"shall … have regard to the desirability".
I find it difficult to believe that anyone could be opposed to that objective, however it is achieved. I hope the Minister will accept that the amendment has been tabled as a constructive suggestion and trust that the Government will find it acceptable. I beg to move.
Baroness Blatch: The noble Lord is particularly anxious to ensure that inspectors take into account the different circumstances of schools and LEAs in terms of the socio-economic background of their pupils and their levels of attainment on entry so that comparisons between schools and local education authorities can have regard to those factors. I can assure the Committee that HMI has always taken those factors into account in compiling its inspection reports and that the chief inspector's guidance on the conduct of inspections will ensure that registered inspectors do likewise. The frequently repeated conclusion reached in both individual school reports and the senior chief inspector's annual reports that some schools are failing to ensure that their pupils develop their full potential is based on what HMI has observed in the best schools catering for similar intakes. That is one important piece of evidence that schools can and should do better.
As and when an acceptable methodology is developed for calculating the value added by schools in terms of the progress made by pupils in their level of attainment between entering the school and leaving it, we can be sure that HMI will take account of it in its guidance. In the meantime, inspectors will continue to use such imperfect measures as are available in order to judge how well schools are serving pupils'

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needs. But as my honourable friends the Minister of State and the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education made clear during discussion of the Bill in another place, it will take time before data on value added become available.
The first cohort of seven year-olds assessed under the national curriculum arrangements last summer will not be assessed as 11 year-olds until 1995. That year will also be the first year in which we shall be able to calculate value added between the ages of 14 and 16. We have to wait until 1997 for the first cohort of pupils assessed as 11 year-olds in 1994 to be assessed as 14 year-olds, and until 1999 before the same cohort reaches age 16. If we were to wait to publish reports on how schools were doing until comprehensive value added data were available, we should have to wait until most of today's school pupils had left. I hope that the Committee will not accept the amendment.
Lord Dormand of Easington: With regard to the first part of her remarks, I wish that I was as sanguine as the Minister. I shall look carefully at what she said. I doubt whether I shall be convinced, but in the meantime I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord Elton Lord Elton moved Amendment No. 44:
Page 2, line 32, after ("schools") insert ("in schools, at teacher training colleges, colleges of further education and non-university colleges").
The noble Lord said: This is a probing amendment and I shall speak to it only briefly. Your Lordships have been assured on two separate occasions—at Second Reading and during discussion of an earlier amendment—that the inspectors will have the power to inspect the training of teachers. However, nowhere in the Bill do I see where these powers are; what controls are to be exercised over them; how they are to be implemented or overseen; or what resources will be devoted to them. I am glad to have had the assurance that these crucially important processes will be overseen because, as I said earlier on, until we get the training of teachers right, we shall not get the schools right. While I subscribe to all that my noble friend has said from the Front Bench about the Government's regard for the profession, it must be a matter of concern that there is no apparent provision in the Bill for seeing to it that the supply of teachers for the future will at least be up to the standard of the supply of teachers at present. That is the purpose of the amendment. It asks the Government where these provisions are and what they are. I beg to move.
Baroness Blatch: I have noted the concern which my noble friend Lord Elton has expressed in respect of the inspection of establishments which provide training for school teachers. He makes an important point. He raised the matter during Second Reading, and I sought to assure him then that under the new office of HMCI the inspection of all initial teacher training establishments would continue. The Secretary of State has a duty to approve courses of initial teacher training leading to qualified teacher status and relies on HMI's advice in doing so. HMI has therefore long been concerned with inspecting all establishments which provide such courses. This will continue to be
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the case. The chief inspector will be able therefore to play a full part in giving advice to the Secretary of State as necessary based on a sound knowledge of the work of these establishments.
Clause 2(4) states:
"The Chief Inspector for England shall have such other functions in connection with schools in England, including functions with respect to the training of teachers for such schools, as may be assigned to him by the Secretary of State".
Given that all establishments which train teachers for teaching in schools come under the Secretary of State, my noble friend's concerns are met.
Lord Elton: There is a peculiar difficulty about this on which I do not want to spend much time this evening. The Long Title of the Bill states:
"An Act to make provision with respect to the inspection of schools and with respect to information about schools and their pupils".
It says nothing about institutions in which teachers are trained. This subsection deals with the training of teachers which I take it is not conducted in such schools and therefore would seem to be outwith the Long Title of the Bill. If I am wrong in that, I am right in thinking that the Bill could make provision for the inspection of the training of teachers not in schools; if I am wrong in that, it seems that this phrase ought not to be in the Bill as drafted.
Baroness Blatch: I think that the difference in understanding between us is that the power in the Bill—I understand that such power exists in the Bill—is for the inspection of,
"the training of teachers for such schools".
Indeed, some of those training establishments will, for example, be within universities so that the inspection will not be of the university as such; it will be on the quality of the training of teachers in those establishments for the purpose of teaching in schools.
Lord Elton: One of us has the other on a Morton's Fork, though I am not sure which one of us it is. Either it is possible to make legislation within the Bill to cover the standard of that training—which I would welcome; but it is not here and we are only told that provisions may be made for it—or it is not possible. In that case, we should not be told that provisions may be made for it because they cannot be made within the terms of the Long Title. I am sure that the Clerks at the Table would have spotted the difficulty before now. Indeed, if there is such a difficulty, it will be discovered before the next stage. Perhaps, therefore, I should rest content for the moment.
I am in some difficulty here because I believe that there ought to be substantial reinforcement of such inspection. I therefore give formal notice that, although I cannot say where it may strike in the Bill, I may be minded to table an amendment on Report when I have been advised as to where it applies.
Lord Peston: Before the noble Lord withdraws the amendment, I must stress that I am a little puzzled. I assumed that the noble Baroness was about to say—indeed, I half thought that she said it—that what the noble Lord wishes to achieve by way of his amendment is what is meant by the phrase at line 32 of subsection (4) as regards the training of teachers for schools. I thought that that was what the Minister

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said; in other words, I thought that she said that matters were okay in respect of the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Elton, and that therefore there was no problem.
However, the noble Lord has now raised the issue of the wording contained in the Long Title and that is a different matter. But, assuming that what is written down in the Bill is in English—which I take to be the case—I understood, if I dare say so, that the Minister's answer was correct. But I am now a little worried because I had assumed that the chief inspector could do exactly what the noble Lord, Lord Elton, wishes. If I am led to believe that that is wrong, I shall, as I said, be a little worried.
Lord Elton: The difference between the noble Lord, Lord Peston, and myself—and it is an odd one—is the fact that I was rather anxious that the chief inspector should be told rather more about how this task should be done, while the noble Lord, who wants him to be told absolutely everything else in regard to the rest of the Bill, including how to tie his shoe laces, does not mind at all how he sets about his task in the training colleges and other departments of education. However, I do not think that we should delay the proceedings with the issue. We had better discover what, if any, procedural difficulty there is. I shall return to the matter at a later stage.
Baroness Blatch: I am slightly unnerved to find myself being supported by the noble Lord, Lord Peston. It is important to note that teacher training will be inspected and that there is no plan to change the number of inspectors engaged in that work. The Secretary of State has a duty to approve the courses of initial teacher training leading to qualified teacher status. His only way of doing that is to rely on HMI. The wording in Clause 2(4) states that the Chief Inspector of England,
"shall have such other functions in connection with schools".
It then continues to specify,
"the training of teachers for such schools".
There are two issues. First, can the chief inspector properly become involved in judging the quality of training for teachers? The answer is very definitely, yes. The second issue about institutions is not at all relevant.
Lord Elton: In the circumstances, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Baroness Blackstone Baroness Blackstone moved Amendment No. 45:
Page 2, line 32, after ("schools") insert ("and the physical condition of school buildings").
The noble Baroness said: In moving this amendment I shall speak also to Amendment No. 70. The Bill gives Her Majesty's Chief Inspectors the responsibility to keep the Secretary of State informed about the quality of education provided by schools, educational standards and the efficiency of financial management in those schools. Clause 2(4) indicates that the chief inspectors may have other functions, including those in respect of the training of teachers for schools about which we have just been speaking.
The Bill makes no mention of the need to monitor the physical conditions of school buildings. At present, HMI has a responsibility to consider the physical conditions of schools. The inspectors' annual report on the effects of local authorities' expenditure policies on educational provision in England currently includes quite a lot of comment on accommodation. The monitoring of educational standards and the quality of educational provision cannot be separated from monitoring the physical conditions in which pupils work.
The under-funding of the capital programme for school buildings is currently estimated to be around £4 billion. Regrettably, that means that a good deal of education takes place in schools that are physically unsatisfactory. It is essential that consideration of that part of education should be within the remit of the chief inspector. In Committee in another place, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State claimed that the powers of Clause 2(2) enabled the Secretary of State to request reports on such matters as the state of buildings. The Minister of State suggested that it would be wrong to identify separately any particular aspect of schooling as all schools come within HMI's remit. With respect, however, I believe that that is contradicted by Clause 2(1)(c), which separately identifies financial resources for schools. I hope that Ministers will accept that monitoring the physical conditions of schools is a very important aspect of the work of HMI and should be on the face of the Bill. I beg to move.
Midnight
Baroness Blatch: In her amendments, the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, wishes to make it clear that the chief inspector may concern himself with the physical condition of school buildings. Let me assure the Committee that that is not in doubt. The chief inspector will be entirely free to report on all matters that affect educational standards and quality and, where the conditions of buildings are material evidence to that end, they will of course form a constituent part of the report.
More than that, the chief inspector is able and free to comment on school buildings even if they do not impact on the standard and quality of education. Where the state of school buildings has an effect on the quality and standard of education, the chief inspector will be under a duty to report that effect under Clause 2(1) (a) and (b). I ask the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendment.
Baroness Blackstone: I am grateful to the Minister, and I am pleased to hear that it is the Government's intention that the chief inspector will be able to report on the physical condition of school buildings. That is very important. I should, however, have preferred to see that specified on the face of the Bill in order to ensure that it happens—and in the longer term. I have no intention of dividing the Committee on a matter of this kind at this time of night. Therefore I shall take away what the Minister has said and consider whether I wish to pursue it at a later stage. Meanwhile, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendments Nos. 46 to 49 not moved.]
Clause 2, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 6 [Functions of the Chief Inspector for Wales]:
[Amendments Nos. 50 to 61 not moved.]
Baroness Blatch Baroness Blatch moved Amendment No. 61A:
Page 4, line 12, leave out ("on matters of good practice").
Baroness Blatch: The noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, is not here but I said that I would accept the amendment, and so on his behalf I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
[Amendments Nos. 62 to 64 not moved.]
Lord Renfrew of Kaimsthorn Lord Renfrew of Kaimsthorn moved Amendment No. 65:
Page 4, line 18, at end insert:
("(cc) monitoring, assessing and giving advice in connection with, the procedures followed by appropriate authorities in selecting registered inspectors to conduct inspections of schools in Wales under section 9;").
On Question, amendment agreed to.
[Amendments Nos. 66 to 68A not moved.]
Lord Elton Lord Elton had given notice of his intention to move Amendment No. 69:
Page 4, line 29, after ("schools") insert ("in schools, at teacher training colleges, colleges of further education and non-university colleges").
The noble Lord said: This was my last amendment to Clause 6. It is worth putting on the record for the puzzled Welsh that the reason we are not discussing any of the amendments in their clause is that we have discussed identical issues in the English clause and have always addressed the Welsh issues at the same time. Having said that, I do not move this amendment.
[Amendment No. 69 not moved.]
[Amendments Nos. 70 to 74 not moved.]
Clause 6, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 3 [Power of Chief Inspector for England to arrange for inspections]:
Lord Elton Lord Elton moved Amendment No. 75:
Page 2, line 39, at end insert:
("( ) The Chief Inspector for England shall each year arrange for at least one inspection conducted by each registered inspector under section 9 to be monitored by one or more of Her Majesty's Inspectors of Schools in England.").
The noble Lord said: With this amendment I shall speak also to Amendment No. 82. The purpose of this amendment is to establish how it is intended that the inspectorate shall maintain a close overview of the quality of work of registered inspectors. We have already addressed the question of the uniformity of standards on a national scale in a number of contexts. This proposal, which I should be glad if the Minister would comment on, is that in order to ensure that there is a proper level of supervision each of the inspectors registered under Clause 9 should themselves be monitored by HMCI and his inspectors on a cycle. I suggest each year, but the noble Baroness might think each four years is more appropriate as she has thought it is for schools. But it seems to me that it might well be prudent that the Government should
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get inside these inspections every now and again to make sure that they are being operated in the way in which the paperwork suggests. I beg to move.
Baroness Denton of Wakefield: I have again to repeat that some matters are best left to the discretion of HMCI. There is no need to spell out in detail on the face of the Bill how he or she will exercise the quality control function which it clearly establishes. We have said that—on the senior chief inspector's best estimate—the equivalent of some 40 HMIs will be needed to operate the registration system and monitor the work of registered inspectors—excluding the additional inspectors who will be needed to act as assessors under the amendments already agreed earlier this evening. If we assume some 600 registered inspectors—and there may not be that many—then each HMI would be overseeing 15 such inspectors, and would be well able, as the amendment suggests, to look in on one inspection each year.
But HMI will wish to have the flexibility to monitor the system sensibly. Some registered inspectors will he more experienced than others. HMI may receive complaints about some inspections, or be concerned itself about the reports it has seen on others. It will wish in a given year to plan its monitoring visits to take account of such factors, and not to be tied to a rigid programme. That does not mean that all registered inspectors will not be monitored on a regular basis, but the nature and frequency of that regular monitoring is properly for HMCI to decide.
I remind the Committee that we have, in adding the amendments moved by my noble friend Lord Renfrew to the Bill, strengthened considerably the HMCI's monitoring role. We have given him the right to see tender papers and attend meetings at which tenders are discussed, so that HMI will see all the proposals put forward by all registered inspectors to all schools. It will therefore be keeping a very close eye on all stages of the inspection process. That initial involvement will be an important source of background information, and may well be used to plan the frequency and nature of further monitoring.
I hope, therefore, that my noble friend will not press the amendment.
Lord Elton: That is a good enough answer for this time of night. I shall not press the amendment. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendment No. 76 not moved.]
Lord Elton Lord Elton moved Amendment No. 77:
Page 2, line 45, after ("to") insert ("all parts of").
The noble Lord said: The purpose of the amendment is obvious: to obtain an assurance that the Bill, as drafted, is sufficient to enable inspectors to go into all parts of the school, including those parts of the rare school where the rare head teacher will not want them to penetrate because a class is not in a position to give the best impression of what is going on in the school generally. I hope that is clear enough to enable my noble friend to reply. I beg to move.
Baroness Blatch: I understand my noble friend's concern to ensure that inspectors have access to all

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parts of a school's premises, and cannot be barred from those parts which the governing body or teachers might not wish them to see, for whatever reason. The right of entry to school premises given to HMI under Clauses 3 and 7, and to registered inspectors and members of inspection teams under Schedule 2, covers all parts of a school's premises, including everything from classrooms to cupboards. I am assured that it even includes detached playing fields. I can give my noble friend the assurances he seeks, and I hope that he will not press the amendment.
Lord Elton: That being so, I should mention Amendments Nos. 78 and 80, which relate to HMI in England, Amendments Nos. 83 and 84 which relate to Wales, and Amendments Nos. 149 and 151 which relate to registered inspectors in both countries. In begging leave to withdraw the amendment, I announce that I shall not be moving those amendments.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendment No. 78 not moved.]
The Deputy Chairman of Committees: I call Amendment No. 79, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Peston.
Lord Peston: It is always paradoxical—
Lord Elton Lord Elton had given notice of his intention to move Amendment No. 78:
Page 2, line 45, leave out ("and").
The noble Lord said: I made an error in what I said a moment ago. The noble Lord the Deputy Chairman picked it up more quickly than I spotted it. Amendment No. 78 is a paving amendment for Amendment No. 80.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees: Amendment No. 78, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Elton.
Lord Elton: I repent of my intervention. It is much better that we do not deal with the amendment tonight. I shall not move it.
[Amendment No. 78 not moved.]
12.15 a.m.
Lord Peston Lord Peston moved Amendment No. 79:
Page 3, line 4, at end insert ("provided that an Inspector shall not have the right t by virtue of this subsection to inspect nor take copies of the appraisal record of any teacher or any part of any document relating solely to an individual, unless authorised to do so by the Chief Education Officer or, in the case of a grant-maintained school, the chairman of the governing body.").
The noble Lord said: I was about to say that in many ways I intended to echo the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Elton, but it is extremely important to discuss this amendment thoroughly. Amendment No. 79 is grouped with Amendments Nos. 85 and 155.
The problem as I see it is as follows. Obviously, if we are to have an inspection, inspectors must obtain all the relevant material; otherwise, they cannot do their jobs properly. However, some of that material may well be personal to the teachers concerned, particularly their appraisal records. This matter concerns the serious issue of civil liberties—especially if one favours appraisal, as I certainly do—as regard
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saccess to such material by what are essentially commercial private enterprises. That is, after all, what the Government seek to introduce into the inspection process. On civil liberties grounds but also on grounds of teacher co-operation, I believe there must be some way of protecting those documents.
Further, if the inspecting team says the problem it is considering necessitates it seeing such material, there should be at least some requirement for authorisation. The amendments standing in my name and that of the noble Lord, Lord Ritchie of Dundee, suggest that either the chief education officer or a local authority or the chairman of a school governing body would have to give permission before such documents could be looked at.
A more extreme provision would require that those documents could never be looked at. I must admit that I have toyed with that idea. However, I am aware that that could make inspection and the ability to get at the real problem much more difficult. That is the problem that is before us. There is a need for the inspecting team to obtain information and a need to protect the rights of the individual. Amendments Nos. 79 and 85 go some way to dealing with that problem. I cannot see anything else in the Bill that does.
Amendment No. 155 relates to the logical consequence of this matter; that is, that the inspection reports will be published. Again we shall have to take into consideration whether any personal matters in connection with individual teachers—especially those contained in documents which teachers had thought could not be looked at—should be included in the publications. The inspection team would have to take into account the general laws regarding defamation, but apart from that one is concerned more generally that material that should be private could get into the published document. Amendment No. 155 endeavours to offer some protection in that regard.
I can appreciate that there is a problem as regards how one offers the protection I have referred to and yet allows access to relevant information. That is a classic problem in open government anyway. That is the problem as I see it. I want to establish what the Government have to offer by way of reassurance to the teachers involved in this matter, who quite rightly feel they might be exposed to public scrutiny, as it were, in a way that would not be acceptable on almost any grounds of protection of the individual. I apologise for putting such a serious matter before the Committee at a quarter past midnight, but we just happen to have reached it at this time of night. I beg to move.
Lord Ritchie of Dundee: I have added my name to this amendment as this is a serious matter. I remember having a conversation with a member of HMI not long ago. I asked him whether occasionally his reports contained confidential material. He replied that there was none. That was when Her Majesty's Inspectorate was inspecting schools. The situation will be different in the future and this matter deserves the attention of the Government. I should like to associate these Benches with the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Peston.
Baroness Blatch: I agree that this is a sensitive and very important issue. I too am not apologetic that we are still here discussing it at this hour.
The noble Lord explained that he wishes to ensure that neither HMI nor registered inspectors have an automatic right of access to records of any kind held on individual members of staff or pupils and that registered inspectors need the permission of the appropriate authority to publish any part of such records in their reports. I shall not take up the Committee's time arguing on a technical point that the amendments would not in fact achieve what the noble Lords opposite want but I shall instead address the principle involved because I am sure that that is what they would wish.
The issue of inspectors' access to personal records was debated at length in another place, and my honourable friend the Minister of State gave an assurance that when the chief inspector was appointed the points raised would be drawn to his or her attention and the extreme sensitivity of the whole subject would be emphasised. I am happy to take this opportunity to repeat his assurance. We are very much aware of the concern and anxiety which teachers and others feel about the need to safeguard the confidentiality of personal records held in schools. But there is no intention under this Bill to open such records to wider scrutiny than that to which they have been subject up to now. I cannot envisage a situation in which any inspector would ever consider publishing material from personal records in an inspection report.
It is clear that HMI and registered inspectors need to have access to academic and personal records kept on pupils in order to assess the school's effectiveness in meeting its statutory duties and providing discipline and pastoral care. They may also have reason to look at teachers' personal records to establish their qualifications and length and type of experience in order to obtain an accurate picture in respect of the whole teaching staff of a school.
However, the position in respect of appraisal records is different, since the information recorded is a judgment about the teacher's capabilities. It is the inspector's job to make that judgment on the basis of observation, not of second-hand evidence; it would detract from the confidential nature of the appraisal process if inspectors were to have access to those papers. HMI has never looked at appraisal records, and we would expect HMCI's guidance to make those points. Therefore registered inspectors would not be able to claim that such records were ones they required for the purposes of their inspections. That should ensure confidentiality.
Given the position I have described and the assurance given by my honourable friend, which I have repeated, I hope that noble Lords will agree that it is unnecessary to impose further conditions on inspectors' right of access to a school's records.
My honourable friend the Minister of State's undertaking to draw our debates—now including this one—to the chief inspector's attention should suffice to ensure that HMI's own actions and its guidance to registered inspectors take full account of our policies
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of confidentiality. If there were any evidence to the contrary those policies could be the subject of a direction under Clause 2 to make sure that they were given full consideration by the chief inspectors.
I hope that with that explanation the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Peston: I thank the noble Baroness for her reply, which I find reassuring. Unfortunately, I am not one of those who needs to be reassured since I am not a teacher who would be affected. I was particularly reassured by her last remarks regarding directions. If the noble Baroness will bear with me I should like to read in Hansard what she said and what her honourable friend said, and hope that that will convince the teachers, who are the people concerned. But if they say that they would like something more specific on the face of the Bill I may have to return to the matter. However, for the moment I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendment No. 80 not moved.]
Lord Elton Lord Elton moved Amendment No. 81:
Page 3, line 4, at end insert:
("(3A) Any Inspector inspecting a school under this section may request the appropriate authority for that school to arrange a meeting in accordance with such provisions as may be prescribed, including provisions as to confidentiality, between himself or an additional inspector authorised by him for the purpose, and those parents of registered pupils at the school who wish to attend.").
The noble Lord said: I should like to have a brief word on this amendment from my noble friend. It simply seeks to attract to the chief inspector and his inspectors that assistance which registered inspectors are under the Bill already entitled to have with regard to meeting with parents. I have to say that I have included one little phrase which is not in the Bill already as it relates to registered inspectors. At a later stage I shall seek to import that phrase into that part of the Bill. The words:
"including provisions as to confidentiality"
are in fact an importation. Why is it that the chief inspector is not entitled to have this facility granted to him when a registered inspector is so entitled? I beg to move.
Baroness Denton of Wakefield: Perhaps I may first say that I applaud my noble friend's intention in seeking to ensure the maximum possible parental involvement in the children's school and, in particular, to allow that when HMI conduct an inspection in school a meeting with parents may be arranged. When HMI conducts a full inspection in the same way as the registered inspectors would be doing—i.e., when they substitute in that stage —it has such powers. If it is just making an inspection of some particular point, that is not covered.
Lord Elton: Is my noble friend saying that that provision is in the Bill somewhere? If so, I shall search for it between now and Report stage. That is what I was seeking. Perhaps she will drop me a note to say where I shall find it. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 3 agreed to.
Clause 7 [Power of Chief Inspector for Wales to arrange for inspections]:
[Amendments Nos. 82 to 86 not moved.]
Clause 7 agreed to.
Clause 4 agreed to.
Clause 8 agreed to.
Baroness Denton of Wakefield: I beg to move that the House do now resume.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
House resumed.

Price's Patent Candle Company Limited Bill [H.L.]
Committed to an Unopposed Bill Committee.
River Humber (Upper Burcom Cooling Works) Bill [H.L.]
Committed to an Unopposed Bill Committee.
River Humber (Upper Pyewipe Outfall) Bill [H.L.]
Committed to an Unopposed Bill Committee.

Ulster Bank Bill [H.L.]
Committed to an Unopposed Bill Committee.
House adjourned at twenty-nine minutes past midnight.