Mr. Win Griffiths
Education Bill
11:19 am
Mr Graham Brady (Altrincham and Sale West, Conservative)
I beg to move amendment No. 10, in page 5, line 9, at end insert—
'(2A) Regulations containing the prescribed criteria relating to the performance of, or the quality of leadership in, the school must be approved by resolution of each House of Parliament in England or by agreement of the National Assembly in Wales'.
I thank Committee members for a reasonable discussion and a reasonable conclusion. I hope that we now have an adequate opportunity to examine the important issues that the Bill raises.
In the spirit of co-operation that I mentioned, I do not intend to speak to the amendment for long, as the arguments are well known by both sides of the Committee. The question is whether we believe that all discretion and decision-making powers should be in the hands of the Secretary of State or divested elsewhere. The Government anticipate that the performance and quality of leadership criteria will be among the measures for approval of autonomy for schools. My amendment would take those criteria out of the hands of the Secretary of State, preventing a Minister from taking an arbitrary decision, and would instead ensure that the House of Commons and the National Assembly for Wales had to approve them.
Earlier in our proceedings, the Minister openly said that the Government's policy was, to a large extent, to move away from primary legislation and towards secondary legislation in decision making. However,
the Bill contains many powers that are simply taken by Ministers without even the approval of secondary legislation.
I am proposing a worthwhile improvement, which would ensure that democratically elected Members of Parliament and Assembly Members in Wales agreed the criteria to decide on earned autonomy for schools. Those criteria would be open to debate and scrutiny; the Secretary of State would not take the decision behind closed doors.