Baroness Morris of Yardley: My Lords, I was not going to speak on this issue; I will do so very briefly. It is really important, and it is a shame that it is so late in the evening. I am in two minds about it: I can see where the Minister is coming from but my views, on the whole, accord with those of my noble friend Lord Liddle, who has just spoken. The point I want to make, and I would ask for the Minister’s...
Baroness Morris of Yardley: My Lords, I support the arguments just made by the noble Duke about maths schools. I am not sure what the Minister will say—maybe she will solve the problem. I am not arguing that they need to be more independent than any others; the argument about the MAT is about the nature of the partnership the school is going into. I value partnerships—they are really important—but I can see the...
Baroness Morris of Yardley: May I seek some clarification on that point? Will the payment of trustees and the interim executive board be the same for maintained schools? There is a parallel situation there, where a governing body of a maintained school is not strong and an interim executive board is put in place. Are the Government proposing that they be paid as well in the intervening period?
Baroness Morris of Yardley: Just to add to that, I think there are—or there used to be—ways for teachers moving from the independent sector to the state sector which were far less than nine months. I take the point about a subject like IT. I absolutely agree with the amendment: teaching is a profession, and all the evidence internationally shows that the better qualified the teacher, the better the achievement for...
Baroness Morris of Yardley: My Lords, I support the thrust of the arguments from the noble Lords who have led this debate. I shall make one or two points that perhaps have not yet come out strongly. The freedom to set their own admissions arrangements was given to academies when they first started. To be honest, I think that was a huge mistake. In local areas, it caused terrible animosity between the academies and the...
Baroness Morris of Yardley: The Minister said at the start of her summing up—and it was about the 20th time she had said it—that she had heard the concerns of Members, would reflect on them and would come back. To be honest, unless she gives us some indication as to when she is going to come back and what she is going to say, we are going to have this at every turn. The noble Viscount who has just spoken is right....
Baroness Morris of Yardley: My Lords, I will make a very brief intervention. I struggle with the whole issue of the curriculum. I basically agree with the noble Lord, Lord Lucas. When I look at many schools, there is not the time in the week for them to do the things that—as the noble Lord, Lord Agnew, just said—might need to be done in the school and community context. The school week is overcrowded and does not...
Baroness Morris of Yardley: My Lords, I have a specific question about Clause 1(6). It is odd to say that a standard may not be set about determining whether academy grammar schools should retain selective admission arrangements. When I first read that, I understood it as an assurance to grammar schools with selective admission arrangements that this was not an intention to change them, in the same way that there is an...
Baroness Morris of Yardley: My Lords, I have not yet heard anything I disagree with, so I shall try to make some different points. This is an odd, strange Bill. On the face of it, there is not a lot in it; however, the issues it addresses are of prime importance. There is nothing more important than the future structure of our school system. Otherwise, we keep revisiting it and do not do the things we really want to. A...
Baroness Morris of Yardley: My Lords, I declare my interest in connection with Birmingham Education Partnership, to which I may refer at different stages of the Bill. I want to begin—as many of us have done—by welcoming the provisions on the register of children not educated in school, and the extension on inspection. That is to put on record my appreciation to my noble friend Lord Soley, whose Private Member’s...
Baroness Morris of Yardley: My Lords, I welcome the opportunity to speak today on the part of the Queen’s Speech debate that addresses public services. Quite frankly, it is probably the most important area because, without success here, none of the other areas of government and activity within the community can thrive and succeed. This is about giving people skills, and about giving them both support and opportunity;...
Baroness Morris of Yardley: My Lords, I support the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan. I do not want to repeat points that have been made at this late hour, but I wish to emphasise that the arguments about the importance of sport and well-being do not need to be made again. Everybody from all parties, right across the House, understand their importance and the consequences of not getting them right. The good...
Baroness Morris of Yardley: My Lords, I am not Lord Puttnam either, but I join my noble friend Lord Lipsey and the noble Lord, Lord Vaizey, in paying tribute to him. I do not think he designed the report as being his last one in this House, but he could not have had a more perfect one for him, since it embraces all the years that he has spent in communications, his commitment to democracy and his understanding of the...
Baroness Morris of Yardley: My Lords, I very much welcome this Bill, which is a very good use of a Private Member’s Bill, and I congratulate Mark Jenkinson on introducing it and for the work he did in the House of Commons. I also thank and congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, on how he introduced it. I want to broadly support it—there is absolutely nothing there with which I disagree—but it gives us the...
Baroness Morris of Yardley: I understand why the Government want to make sure that students have the skills they need to manage the course, but there has been a lot of concern caused by the minimum eligibility requirements. Can the Minister confirm that the important thing is that the students have the skills they need to do the course, not that they have GCSE English or maths at level 4? The two things are not the...
Baroness Morris of Yardley: My Lords, I also wish to support the amendments that have been moved by the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, and supported by other speakers. I do not want to make a long speech, but I want to add weight to the argument by standing up and offering support. I will not repeat his arguments, but I want to pay tribute to the work that the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, has done in this regard. He chairs the...
Baroness Morris of Yardley: My Lords, I have put my name to this amendment and I shall speak in support of it. I very much welcome the way in which the noble Lord, Lord Wasserman, presented the argument. He gave a lot of detail, and at this time of night I will not go over it again, but I want to emphasise one or two points. To begin with, I say that I sort of understand the points made by the noble Baroness, Lady...
Baroness Morris of Yardley: My Lords, first, I thank and congratulate my noble friend Lady Donaghy on bringing forward this debate. It is a big issue and the changes that the Government are proposing are worthy of more debate and consideration than they have given us the opportunity of in this House and the other place. This is an important debate. Nothing in education is as important as teacher training and retention....
Baroness Morris of Yardley: My Lords, one of the most disturbing aspects of what Professor Stock has had to endure is that some academic staff seem to have encouraged students to behave in a way that is quite contrary to the purpose of being at university. If higher education stops being a place for open debate and discussion, we as a nation really do have problems. But, sadly, Professor Stock is not the only person in...
Baroness Morris of Yardley: To ask Her Majesty's Government what discussions they had prior to the announcement of the Skills Accelerator: Local Skills Improvement Plan Trailblazers and Strategic Development Fund pilot areas with (1) the mayor of Teeside, (2) the mayors from other trailblazer areas, and (3) council leaders from trailblazer areas.
