Brace yourself: Lords Agnew, Nash, Baker and Harris lined up to speak on schools bill, with Gove waiting in the wings

Host of former education ministers poised to speak, with measures on academisation likely to continue to provoke debate.

A Who’s Who of high-profile figures, with expertise either overseeing or criticising the academies policy, have been lined up to offer their views as the much-discussed Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill returns to Parliament tomorrow.

I counted nine former education secretaries or schools ministers who have been listed as speakers as the bill reaches its second reading in the House of Lords, most of them seemingly likely to criticise the legislation’s moves to impose some limits on academy freedoms.

The former academies ministers Lords Agnew and Nash, who were among the critics when the Conservative government sought to impose greater regulation on the academies policy through a bill back in 2022, and both of whom have set up and overseen their own academy chains, have been listed as speakers tomorrow.

So has Lord Baker, education secretary under Margaret Thatcher who introduced City Technology Colleges which eventually paved the way for academies, and who was also highly critical of the 2022 bill.

Also listed as a speaker is Baroness Barran, who was the academies minister who sought to pilot the 2022 bill through the Lords, and whose position on Labour’s attempt will therefore be interesting. Will she side with greater regulation, or against it?

Also listed as a speaker is Baroness Morgan of Cotes, who as Nicky Morgan led an attempt as education secretary in 2016 to compel all schools into academy status, but which was ditched before it could be included in a Queen’s Speech that year. The move would have seen all schools academised or in the process of taking on the status by 2022.

Another perhaps less-remembered former academies minister under the Conservatives, Lord Hill of Oareford, who was appointed as David Cameron’s first education minister in the Lords in 2010 and was Lord Nash’s predecessor as academies minister, is also among the listed speakers.

On the Labour side, among those listed to speak are the former education secretary Lord Blunkett, who introduced the academies policy in 2000; his successor Baroness (Estelle) Morris of Yardley, who was in post when the first academies actually opened in 2002; and the former schools minister Lord Knight of Weymouth, who currently chairs one of the largest academy trusts: E-Act.

It will be interesting to see if these Labour figures, if they do speak, are critical of the bill, which has provisions on academies including requiring them to follow the national curriculum, not to pay teachers below a “floor,” and mandating that any unqualified teacher is in the process of becoming qualified.

Another former education minister of the Tony Blair era, Baroness Blackstone, is also listed among the speakers, though missing are other Lords ministers from the previous Labour government.

Among high-profile members of the Lords who seem likely to back curbs on academy freedoms, from a position of scepticism about the policy, are Baroness (Christine) Blower, the former National Union of Teachers general secretary who raised fundamental concerns about academisation when the 2022 bill was debated; and Baroness (Mary) Bousted, who until 2023 was joint general secretary of the National Education Union.

Ranged against them will also be Lord Harris of Peckham, the titular “sponsor” of England’s second-largest academy chain, who has been a vocal critic of the current bill. His fellow Conservative peer, Lord (Stanley) Fink, a hedge fund manager and former co-treasurer of the Conservative Party who has been a long-serving trustee of the charities Ark and Ark Schools, is also listed as a speaker. Meanwhile, a Labour peer with close links to Ark, Baroness (Sally) Morgan of Huyton, also a former chair of Ofsted, is also listed as a speaker.

With 89 speakers listed as the deadline for submitting speaking requests neared yesterday, and with “any member” having the right to speak and second reading debates said sometimes “to stretch over a couple of days,” Education Uncovered could be wading through a long transcript later this week.

Waiting in the wings of this debate is Michael Gove, who of course as education secretary from 2010 presided over the explosion of academy numbers in the early 2010s as he reshaped the policy from Labour’s vision of a small-scale attempt to transform mainly inner-city secondary schools to the government’s favoured governance model for all state-funded schools in England.

Mr Gove will combine his new position with his post-Commons role as editor of the Spectator. His appointment to the Lords was announced earlier this month in former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s resignation honours list, but he will reportedly not take up the position until later in May.

CORRECTION: When this article was published, it said that Baroness Berridge sought to pilot the 2022 bill through the Lords. In fact it was Baroness Barran, who is also due to speak in tomorrow's debate. The text above has been corrected.