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My Lords, I thank the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee and the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments for their scrutiny of this instrument. The draft regulations were laid in Parliament on 20 May 2026. As noble Lords will be aware, the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026 changes the legal framework for opening new state-funded schools. It ends the legal presumption that new schools should be academies and helps to ensure that new schools can be delivered quickly where they are needed by enabling proposals from local authorities and voluntary organisations as additional routes to delivery. This provides greater flexibility in the system, including in circumstances where suitable academy trust capacity is limited.
This instrument makes consequential amendments arising out of these provisions. The amendments to primary and secondary legislation are necessary to ensure that references to the legislative framework for opening new schools are correct and consistent across the statute book and to update provisions to ensure that they are compatible with the new legislative framework. The amendments are minor and technical in nature and do not introduce any significant new policy.
The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act repeals Section 6A of the Education and Inspections Act 2006, relating to the presumption that new schools should be academies. Arrangements for inviting proposals for new schools are now contained in the amended Section 7. The Act also replaces Sections 10 and 11 of the Education and Inspections Act with an amended Section 10. The draft regulations before us remove references to Sections 6A and 11 in other primary and secondary legislation and replace them with references to Sections 7 and 10 respectively where necessary, providing legal clarity.
The amended provisions relate to: land given to a local authority on trust for educational purposes; transfer of employment where an independent school is replaced by a maintained school; proposals of new schools; the ability of local authorities to put in place governance arrangements for new schools ahead of proposals being approved; and powers enabling a preparing or shadow council to exercise certain functions in relation to establishing, altering or closing schools during the process of local government reorganisation.
The draft regulations also make two small amendments of substance. The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026 sets out procedures for the establishment of new pupil referral units by local authorities. The regulations extend legislation to apply to newly established pupil referral units in two cases. Currently, where a new maintained school replaces an independent school, a teacher at the independent school transferring, under transfer of undertakings (protection of employment) legislation, to the new school may choose to retain their existing terms and conditions or choose to opt into the school teachers’ pay and conditions document. This instrument extends the provision so that it applies when an independent school is replaced by a pupil referral unit, affording teachers the same choice.
Secondly, this instrument applies and extends Regulation 5 of the School Governance (New Schools) (England) Regulations 2007 to pupil referral units. When only one school proposal has been published under Section 7 or 10 of the Education and Inspections Act 2006 as amended, a local authority is able to put in place governance arrangements for a maintained school in anticipation of that proposal being approved. This will now also apply where only one proposal for a pupil referral unit has been published. These amendments will ensure legal clarity and consistency.
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My Lords, remembering the bit of the Bill we did when we started this, I think this is quite a sensible provision. There is no great disagreement in principle on this, certainly on my part. We have a mixed economy for schools, and indeed the previous Government discovered, when they wanted everything to become academised, that even people who were good long-serving Conservatives were not that keen on getting functional schools converted across. We have a mixed economy, and it seems to be largely accepted that, until we get around to a radical reform or until the wind changes, it will stay as that.
I do not know what councils and local authorities having some capacity to expand or change the school system will mean with falling school rolls, but the emphasis on pupil referral units and special schools is quite sensible, as this will undoubtedly be part of a more coherent picture of dealing with those who will not succeed in mainstream schools. The autism lobby might be interested in the potential here, because the huge costs involved in transporting people to appropriate special schools might be addressed here, at least in the medium term. That is probably more hope than expectation, but it would certainly be something that allows that to happen.
On pupil referral units, whatever is happening at the moment, more people seem to be failing and rejected by mainstream schools, and they need somewhere where they can be addressed. I do manage to make everything about special educational needs, do I not? The high number of needs identified in people on the way to or in pupil referral units is a reality. Those who are not succeeding at school tend to be rejected in the majority of cases. So this is a sensible suggestion, if we accept that we have this mixed relationship in where schools come from. As such, I have no objection to this; indeed, I have a little bit of hope.
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Con
The Earl of Effingham
My Lords, I thank the Minister for introducing today’s statutory instrument, which makes amendments consequential to the provisions of the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act. I record His Majesty’s loyal Opposition’s support for one measure within these regulations. These regulations will make it easier for teachers and local authorities to transition into new pupil referral units, making it easier to create those new PRUs.
We support the expansion of alternative education provision, particularly for those who need additional help. Indeed, in government, we supported PRUs and general alternative provision. We oversaw an increase in independent alternative provision pupils of 156% in the seven years leading up to the 2024 election. Alternative provision academies doubled in our final 10 years in office, and these in particular are more likely to be judged outstanding by Ofsted and have better attendance than other state-funded alternative provision, as they can combine academic freedom with tailored pastoral support. We therefore support regulations enabling the expansion of alternative provision.
However, although some of this instrument supports the expansion of alternative provision education, which so benefited from the freedoms the Conservatives gave it, other measures in this SI simultaneously enforce the Government’s crackdown on the freedoms of academies. The Academies Act 2010 ushered in the most substantive education reforms in a generation. It introduced the academy as the presumptive model for any new school, a provision that was introduced into legislation the following year. This SI now repeals that free school presumption, instead allowing an array of new schools to be proposed.
The success of academies was one of the proudest achievements of the last Conservative Government. By the end of our time in office, England’s performance in global PISA rankings had improved from 27th to 11th in mathematics and from 25th to 13th in reading. That improvement lies primarily with academisation. Pupils attending early sponsored academies achieve on average one GCSE grade higher than those in predecessor schools. Seventeen out of the top 20 English secondary schools with the highest Progress 8 scores are academies or free schools, as are 84% of the top 50.
It was, prior to the last election, a cross-party consensus that giving schools the freedom to compete and innovate was the key to improving their standards. Simply comparing England’s results to those of Wales and Scotland proves this hypothesis. We believe that removing the academy as the default is ill advised. It will serve only to slow the improvement of educational standards to the detriment of future generations. With luck, the next Administration will realise that mistakes have been made and change tack to the right course of action but for now, we will have to continue our constructive challenge for what we see as the right decision.
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I thank noble Lords for their contribution to this discussion today. I know from previous experience that both noble Lords are passionate about education and understand its importance for our young people. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Addington, for his particular reference to the mixed economy and the ability to respond to particular circumstances as they arise. He quite rightly referenced, for example, falling rolls, which is an issue that is working its way through primary schools at the moment and which will be going into secondary schools for a substantial number of years; of course, that has an effect. I am interested in his comments about the autism lobby. I know he will keep us up to date with his thinking around that, but from my own experience—
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I will let the noble Baroness know that I do not have to keep noble Lords up to date; it is going to let everybody know.
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I have no doubt about that either, and of course we welcome the extraordinary work that it does in such an area of high need going forward. But I think the noble Lord must acknowledge that he has a particular role in terms of promoting, at every possible opportunity, as he quite rightly outlined, his commitment to making sure that Members of this House take account of the challenges, needs and opportunities—and of course the successes—in these areas.
I think it is fair to say that pupil referral units have had a rather mixed experience over the years, and so everything that we can do to make sure that there is proper oversight and connection with other schools in a particular community is to be welcomed.
I do not have much to say to the noble Earl, Lord Effingham; I think he will continue to express his concerns and his views. But I would have thought that the most important thing that we can do is to support local areas to come up with the best provision that they can. It is simply a fact that in some areas the academy chains do not necessarily have the reach or the capacity or the expertise in particular areas to take on the important challenges that are facing our young people today. It is absolutely with that in mind that we want to move forward to make sure that all schools and institutions have the very best opportunity to work with the best providers, making sure that we have proper oversight of the governance going forward.
I am sure that the noble Earl will continue to have a look at progress as we go forward. Despite his acknowledgement of the incredible progress that has been made in some areas, we know that the education system is letting down too many young people, and we have to do everything that we can to make sure that the opportunities are there.
This is not an ideological decision by any means at all; it is simply practical. It responds to need and will make sure that the best possible players are available. Just to recap, the instrument will make the necessary consequential amendments arising out of the provisions in the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026 relating to the opening of new schools. With that in mind, I beg to move.