Speeches by O'Brien.

“Q Good morning, and thank you for coming. Julie, on your logistical questions, ASCL said in its statement that “work will be needed to get these measures right…Further changes must be done with care and must not seem ideological.” You talked about some of the issues that you want to see addressed as we amend the Bill. …”

“Q Are there any other ways in which you would like to see the Bill amended? Andy Smith: I think some things are missing from the Bill. There are some things that will be positive; no doubt we will come to those. What was disappointing, from the policy paper to where we are now, was the lack of corporate parenting: we w…”

“Q That is very helpful. Clause 18 provides for regulations to be made on agency workers and their pay. We would all like to spend less on all these different things, but even though we might be sympathetic to the ideas in the Bill, do you agree that if we just cap prices without taking action on supply, it will fail, b…”

“Q Would you like to see resourcing clearly specified in this Bill? Ruth Stanier: You are absolutely right that the new burdens doctrine must be applied in the usual way. There are a number of measures in this Bill for which additional funding will be required, for example the new multi-agency units. We are encouraged t…”

“Q Thank you for coming. We have an important principle in local government called the new burdens doctrine, which is that if the Government put a burden on local government, they pay for it. Given the various new duties and obligations that the Bill will place on local government, do you agree that that principle shoul…”

“Q Do you share, Dr Homden, the concern that we should be very clear that this should not delay decision making? Dr Homden: Absolutely.”

“Q I have follow-up questions specifically about some of the measures in the Bill about family group decision making—a thing that a lot of people generally are very supportive of. My only slight concern about it is at what stage in the process that happens, and whether, if it is at the point where you are seeking a cour…”

“Q Are we still waiting to hear what that intervention regime will look like? Sir Martyn Oliver: Yes, but I think it is very imminent. I am very happy: I feel that we are going to hold the system to account to raise standards better than ever before.”

“Q I have a very specific question on small rural primary schools attempting to deliver breakfast clubs, potentially with a very small number of staff. What is your understanding of whether the time spent doing breakfast clubs will count as directed time?”

“Do we know whether that is the case? Nigel Genders: There is the question of how to make all that possible within the allotted hours that staff can be directed. It needs resourcing. It does not have to be teachers who provide those breakfast clubs—”

“Q No, but what if it is a teacher in your little schools? Nigel Genders: They will have to be resourced to do it in other ways to make it possible.”

“Q Mark, getting straight to the point, are there any amendments that you would like to see? Mark Russell: I associate myself entirely with everything that my colleague has said, but I have a couple of extra points. I would want the Bill to include a measurement of children’s wellbeing. I welcome the fact that the title…”

“Q The first question is for Dr Homden. You talked about some of the things in the Bill that you would like to see amended. I wonder whether you could expand on that, and particularly your point about the timeliness of intervention. Dr Homden: Particularly, we are concerned that some of the very sensible provisions in t…”

“Q That was a superbly diplomatic answer—particularly the end of it. I will come on to Dan. You talked about QTS freedoms and the importance of being able to employ mature people in STEM and the like, and the risk that not having that freedom might put some of them off. I will just ask you about the freedoms on curricul…”

“Q Luke, you wrote a very interesting piece in the TES the other day about the importance of variety and difference between schools. You work in some exceptionally disadvantaged areas, turning around particularly difficult schools. I saw that you had used the academy freedoms to offer the nine-day fortnight so that teac…”

“Q Right, so you do not think that there is a particular problem out there that needs to be solved. David Thomas: No, there is not one that I can see.”

“Q One last point. Zooming back a bit, a few different witnesses called for a vision of where the system is going, and they intuited what the Government’s vision was from the contents of the Bill. I thought that was very interesting. I just wondered what Ministers’ view was of what had gone wrong in Wales. Obviously in …”

“Q It was a point that David made in his evidence on it. I thought he made a good point. Catherine McKinnell: Obviously, we will listen to legitimate concerns on that. At the moment our view is that it is a much more proportionate way of dealing with a breach by an academy of a legal requirement within the legislation, …”

“Q On that front we are in agreement. My question is whether the Minister would be prepared to limit that to schools’ actual duties, rather than just anything that the Secretary of State sees fit to direct them to do. That is the worry. It is not an “in principle” objection to it. It is a problem that the power is so un…”

“Q I understand the sense of that. Catherine McKinnell: We need a proportionate response and that needs to be framed—”