PARLIAMENTARY DEBATE
Employment Rights Bill (Fourteenth sitting) - 17 December 2024 (Commons/Public Bill Committees)

I beg to move amendment 168, in schedule 3, page 115, leave out from the beginning of line 15 to the end of line 31 and insert—

“(1) In the case of staff employed under subsection (3)(b) of section 148C, matters within the SSSNB’s remit are limited to the establishment of a framework to which employers of school support staff must have regard when discharging their functions.

(2) A framework under subsection (1) must include information on—

(a) the remuneration of school support staff;

(b) the terms and conditions of employment of school support staff;

(c) the training of school support staff;

(d) career progression for school support staff; and

(e) related matters.

(3) When taking any action related to the matters in subsection (2), an employer may disregard the framework only in exceptional circumstances.

(4) For the purposes of subsection (3), the definition of ‘exceptional circumstances’ shall be set out in regulations.

(5) In the case of staff employed under subsection (3)(a) of section 148C, the matters within the SSSNB’s remit are matters relating to the following—

(a) the remuneration of school support staff;

(b) terms and conditions of employment of school support staff;

(c) the training of school support staff;

(d) career progression for school support staff.

(6) The Secretary of State may by regulations provide that, for the purposes of subsection 5—

(a) a payment or entitlement of a prescribed kind is, or is not, to be treated as remuneration;

(b) a prescribed matter is, or is not, to be treated as relating to terms and conditions of employment of school support staff;

(c) a prescribed matter is, or is not, to be treated as relating to the training of school support staff;

(d) a prescribed matter is, or is not, to be treated as relating to 30 career progression for school support staff.”

This amendment would change the matters within the SSSNB’s remit in relation to academy staff, limiting it to the creation of a framework to which academy employers must have regard in all but exceptional circumstances.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Vaz, at the Committee’s last sitting before Christmas—let us make it a memorable one. [Laughter.]

They are all memorable.

They are.

But some are more memorable than others.

Some are definitely more memorable than others.

Amendment 168, tabled in my name and that of my hon. Friends on the Conservative Benches, would change the matters that are within the remit of the school support staff negotiating body in relation to academy staff, limiting it to the creation of a framework to which academy employers must have regard in all but “exceptional circumstances”. I am sure that Government Members will agree to a moderate amendment in the spirit of what they seek to do.

As I said in the debate on clause 28, which introduces schedule 3, in 2010 the then Conservative Secretary of State for Education, Michael Gove, rightly abolished the school support staff negotiating body. The Conservative Government had a clear and principled reason for that: employers should have the flexibility to set pay and conditions locally, rather than having a top-down, centralised framework imposed on them. Instead of giving employers the flexibility to do what works best for them, this Government are establishing a national terms and conditions handbook on training, career progression routes and fair pay rates for school support staff.

These things can sometimes get taken out of context, so I want to be clear: we are not advocating for a race to the bottom on pay and conditions for school support staff, but we believe that the current arrangements are working well and have allowed for innovation that is beneficial for pupils—real children up and down the land receiving their education. Our worries about the re-establishment of the school support staff negotiating body are principally that we believe that school employers must retain a degree of freedom and flexibility to recruit, develop, remunerate and deploy their staff for the benefit of the children in their community—their setting—to achieve their particular aims from a school improvement and inclusion perspective.

Children with special educational needs and disabilities rely on schools’ ability to deploy staff to meet their individual needs, and stifling innovation in staffing to meet those needs would be the greatest barrier to reforming the SEND system. In particular, ensuring that mainstream provision can meet the needs of SEND children requires, in its very essence, an innovative use of support staff resource.

As I have said in previous debates, I salute all support staff, whether they support children with SEND or other- wise. They are great assets to every school who do an enormous amount of good work for every child they work with on a daily basis—I am thinking of the example given earlier by the hon. Member for Birmingham Northfield, and the way in which they interact with and support my own children in their schools in Buckinghamshire. They are hugely important, but this is about ensuring local decision making, local flexibility and the local ability to shape what is right for children’s education, development and future life prospects.

For those reasons, we believe that the statist approach created by the Bill is fundamentally misguided, and that children, particularly those with additional needs, could be worse off because of it. All school employers operate in a competitive market to attract and retain staff. I accept that in the education world it is currently particularly difficult to recruit teachers and support staff—there is no doubt that that has been a challenge for a considerable number of years—but, particularly in relation to support staff, schools compete with other local establishments, including in the private sector, and employers in local markets. Incentives to attract and retain staff are needed.

Our concerns with the re-establishment of the school support staff negotiating body do not end there. Academy trusts sign a funding agreement with the Secretary of State that gives them certain freedoms, among which is the ability to set pay and conditions for staff. What the Government are trying to do with the Bill is therefore to unpick a clear, established and positive freedom that academy trusts have. To take that away from them would be a retrograde step. The Bill explicitly overrides that contract. As for school support staff, it states:

“Where the person is employed by the proprietor of an Academy, any provision of the Academy arrangements relating to the Academy has no effect to the extent that it makes provision that is prohibited by, or is otherwise inconsistent with, the agreement.”

His Majesty’s loyal Opposition worry that this is just the start of the Government’s longer-term mission to unwind academy freedoms, and that it shows that they fail to understand how to support educational excellence.

The data on key stage 4 performance recently released by the Department for Education shows that academies and free schools tend to perform better than other types of school. We therefore believe that it would be counterproductive to unwind one of the key tenets that has led them to where they are today. There is always room for improvement, but when things are travelling in the right direction it is foolish to put barriers up. Our amendment would change the SSSNB’s remit so as to create a framework that academies must have regard to but are not compelled to follow. That seems a reasonable compromise, and I ask the Government to consider it carefully.

In this context—we are all creatures of our own experience—I think particularly of examples from my constituency of Mid Buckinghamshire and the county of Buckinghamshire more widely. I think I brought up this example in relation to other sectors in earlier Committee sittings. Because the county of Buckinghamshire borders London boroughs, rigid pay scales make recruitment an even greater challenge, because of the London weighting issue. Many teaching assistants, school support staff and, frankly, staff in any sector—we will come to adult social care later in the Bill, and care workers are equally affected—who live in Buckinghamshire and perhaps want to work there feel compelled to go and get the extra money that the London weighting would bring by applying for a job in, say, the London boroughs of Hillingdon or Harrow. Nobody can blame them for doing that, but it creates a recruitment challenge for Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire, Essex, Kent, Surrey and other London-bordering counties.

The amendment seeks to correct for what the Government are trying to do with schedule 3, and so to maintain the freedom that allows academies in Buckinghamshire and those other counties to dynamically adapt their pay and offering for school support staff and counter those challenges. It would mean that schools in Buckinghamshire that want to employ people who want to work in Buckinghamshire can get them on board, rather than there being a false incentive that forces people to take jobs in one of the London boroughs and secure the London weighting that goes with them. That is one practical example of why I believe that academies, and free schools for that matter, should have that core freedom and flexibility to get it right for their children.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Vaz.

I think I am correct in saying that Buckinghamshire is one area that has opted out of the National Joint Council, so I recognise that the shadow Minister brings a particular perspective to the debate, but the final line of the amendment states that

“a prescribed matter is, or is not, to be treated as relating to 30 career progression”.

I assume that is just a typographical error, but it would be good to have that point clarified.

More widely, I do not think the amendment is necessary. In some ways, it is quite loosely worded. It seeks to put in the Bill a reference to a framework, but a framework is not defined and that would not be clarified through later regulations. Therefore, I am not sure that the wording before us would necessarily resolve the Opposition’s aim, and the meaning of “framework” is probably not something that we would want to have out in the courts.

On the wider issues, the shadow Minister said that the proposals in the Bill would overwrite the funding agreements, but part of those agreements is a requirement for academy employers to have regard to the academies handbook, which is altered as part of the normal course of public policy, so such variations are not especially new. As I say, I do not think that what is in front of us would achieve the Opposition’s aim. The reinstatement of the school support staff negotiating body was a manifesto commitment. It would be problematic to say that a manifesto commitment could not be implemented because funding agreements were already in place. It is quite proper for the Government of the day to pursue their public policy objectives in this manner.

I would like to correct the record. In the morning sitting I said that freedom of information requests had established that, where data was held, the vacancy rate for teaching assistants was 10%. The actual figure is 18%. I just wanted to put that higher number on the record.

I should warn the Committee that I have a frog in my throat and a bit of a cough, but I think it is known that I used to work for the former Prime Minister, Baroness May, and I have seen how to get through a speech with a cough.

The amendment is important because it seeks to protect one of the academy freedoms that have made English schools the best in the west. I say English and not British schools advisedly, because education is devolved and, in Scotland and Wales, standards have gone not forward but backward. In Wales, the average pupil reaches about the same level of attainment as the average disadvantaged pupil in England, yet it is the Welsh model that the Government seem to be intent to follow. So the amendment is all about seeking to protect the academy freedoms behind the success of the school reforms of which the Conservatives are rightly proud.

According to the programme for international student assessment—or PISA—rankings, English primary school- children are the best readers in the west. On 15-year- olds, they say that schools in England are 11th in the world in maths, up from 27th in 2009; 13th in science, up from 16th; and 13th in reading, up from 25th. That is an unqualified success story. Yet I am afraid the Education Secretary and Ministers in the current Government repeatedly claimed that standards fell under the Conservatives.

The hon. Member is making an interesting argument. I am keen to tease out the evidence for the assertion that there is a relationship between the decentralisation of pay and terms and conditions, and performance. Can he explain why, then, the overwhelming majority of academies subscribe to the National Joint Council green book terms and conditions? Is that not, in fact, an argument for collective bargaining as a handmaiden to academic success?

I am doing my best to remain in scope, Ms Vaz.

If I may say so, the hon. Member asks a characteristically precise and intelligent question. I suggest that members of the Labour party who want to move away from academy freedoms look first at what Labour figures such as Tony Blair and Lord Adonis say about why those freedoms matter.

It is a bit like with the Bill overall: just because some employers choose to hit certain standards, that does not necessarily mean that those standards must then be imposed in a uniform manner through legislation. The point about academy freedoms is that, a little like labour market flexibilities, they are cumulative. If we look at the list of academy freedoms—whether in respect of the terms and conditions that schools are able to employ staff on, the relationship with councils and how admissions are decided, or the policy of having to respond to school failure through academisation—we see that they are all being picked away at, partly through this Bill and partly through the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, which we discussed briefly earlier and is being introduced today. While that Bill has not been published, as the Minister corrected me earlier, there is a description on gov.uk of the measures in that Bill, and it is quite clearly a reversal of policy when it comes to academisation. The reason that school reform has worked over this time is not just because of particular measures about things such as the promotion of a knowledge-rich curriculum, or didactic teacher-led instruction, or anything like that. Those are the means by which lots of schools have chosen to use their academy freedoms in order to improve standards—

Perhaps we could, but I am trying to make the argument that, in the end, when we are talking about employment in the public sector—when we are talking about terms and conditions and things like that—yes, these things are obviously of huge importance to the employees themselves, but they are also important regarding the way in which employers set themselves up. The purpose of a school is obviously to educate our children, and the ultimate objective is to drive up those academic standards. That is the context in which we are discussing these particular academy freedoms and what this Bill therefore does.

It is the case that free school and academy founders have been in the vanguard of reform, precisely because they have been able to use their freedoms from local council control—freedoms to develop the curriculum in their own way, to set things such as the school day and term dates, and to decide the pay and conditions for their staff themselves. We can see that in the data that is published: it is not just about things such the PISA rankings; it is also about things such as the trends in international mathematics and science study, an international comparative study, which was published a couple of weeks ago and showed that, despite the pandemic, English schools have actually improved and have outperformed almost all western countries.

It is also the case that the progress data that the Government have published demonstrates that the best schools in the country have benefited from exactly those kinds of freedoms. The best school in the country, looking at performance data, is Michaela, which is a free school. Free schools and academies far outperform normal maintained schools when it comes to that data, and that is because of the freedoms that we are talking about trying to defend through our amendment.

I know that this is a debate for another time, but I am very disappointed that the Government have cancelled the next wave of free schools, that they have weakened things such as Ofsted and its inspection framework, and that they want to water down discipline policies and so on. I am very disappointed as well that, through measures such as this, the Government are watering down the academy freedoms that have done so much to make our schools the best in the world.

Does the point the hon. Lady is trying to argue go to the very reason for having different types of school in the system? Academies were set up by the last Labour Government for a reason, which was to have additional freedoms such as those the amendment defends. Free schools were set up by the coalition Government, of which the Liberal Democrats were part, to have a different set of freedoms—in that sense, parental and governing body freedoms that are over and above everyone else. If we were to make all schools the same, surely that is an argument for one style of school alone.

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for giving way once more. She is presuming that the academy would be offering a lower rate, but in fact, it might be the case that, in order to attract staff, the academy offers something much higher.

Is it the case—perhaps this gets to the heart of the matter—that the proposed way that the SSSNB would work is that a matter would be referred to a body, an agreement would be reached, and it would be passed back to the Secretary of State to write it into regulations? Nowhere in the Bill does it say that that would be a ceiling. If it was something that was negotiated between the parties, it would be a floor that could be improved on. There is nothing in the Bill to stop that happening.

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair this afternoon, Ms Vaz, and as always I refer to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, and my membership of the GMB and Unite trade unions.

The shadow Minister will not be surprised to hear that we are not going to accept the amendment, as it would drive a coach and horses through what we are trying to achieve. The remit in the Bill gives the negotiating body the scope necessary to negotiate and reach agreements on pay and conditions, and advise on training and career progression for all school support staff. The Secretary of State may then incorporate agreements reached in support staff contracts through secondary legislation. As has been pointed out, that would be a floor. It will be possible for schools to innovate above that, and the detail will be worked out in due course. This is about creating a baseline for terms and conditions, not a ceiling.

As the shadow Minister knows, as roughly half of the 24,000 state-funded schools are academies the amendment would seriously undermine the policy intention of the SSSNB. We believe that about 800,000 employees would be positively impacted by the Bill, but the amendment would mean that school support staff in academies would have no voice, and no opportunity to raise their concerns about pay, career progression and training prospects, which we know are real issues, particularly in the SEN sectors. There would no vehicle for them, because they would not be part of this body. Of course their employers would have to have regard to what the SSSNB decided, but there would be no legal requirement for those terms to be incorporated into individual contracts. I think that misses the point of what we are trying to achieve here. I do not accept that there is a connection between good educational outcomes and low pay for teaching assistants, which seems to be the thrust of the argument from the Opposition. As my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Northfield said, the references in the amendment to a framework are not particularly helpful, as it is not defined and would create more confusion. We should say that it is not just academies that can demonstrate excellence in innovation. All schools have the ability to do that, and there will be room for all schools to continue to innovate under the legislation and meet their local recruitment needs.

I listened very carefully to what the Minister and the hon. Member for Birmingham Northfield said about amendment 168. I was open to dialogue on it to see if we can make it stronger and improved. Its proposed new subsection (2) sets out all the information we would expect to see in such a framework. There are five parts including the remuneration of school support staff; the terms and conditions of employment of school support staff; the training of school support staff; career progression for school support staff; and—the lovely catch-all phrase that drafters love to put in—all related matters. I would say that it is pretty clear what we have laid out.

To get to the nub of the argument, this is not about some sort of race to the bottom. It is not about, as the Minister asserted, arguing for low pay. That is not what we are doing at all. This is a point of principle about support for the academy system, which was brought in by a former Labour Government, and support for free schools, which was brought in by a coalition of the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats. The three main parties in this House on that basis are broadly aligned, unless anyone has radically changed their mind—perhaps they have, and 2015 probably did focus some minds.

This is a point of principle of diversity in the education system, and central to the diversification of offer is that those establishments, in this case academies, have the freedoms to decide things themselves, locally. In this case, it is on pay and terms and conditions but, wary of the fact that I do not want to go out of scope, it can be on other things as well. To take that away would be the retrograde step that I spoke about. It would undermine academies, and it would undermine the very point of having choice and the diversity of offer in the education system for parents.

The shadow Minister is talking about choice, but the Bill does not remove any academies from the current system. Will he confirm that?

No, of course it does not remove academies from the system, but it does take away a freedom and power that all those wonderful academies, many in my own constituency and I am sure some in the Minister’s, currently enjoy to be able to set their educational offer, including the power of who they recruit and on what basis they recruit them. I come back to the point I made when I intervened on the hon. Member for Chippenham; if we are going to just make everything the same again, there needs to be an honesty about actually advocating that from the Government, from the Liberal Democrats or from whoever it might be. I value and welcome the choice that we have in our education system, and this is one of those freedoms that makes that choice possible.

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

I will give way to the hon. Lady first.

I think the hon. Lady has potentially misinterpreted my remarks. I am not directly conflating the pay of staff with the educational outcome: I am saying that there are academies that may well be able to structure their own affairs in the way they recruit, pay and set terms and conditions so that that is actually more favourable. That is one of those fundamental freedoms that make academies—and free schools, for that matter—different and able to offer the diversity that we both seem to celebrate, particularly in supporting those children who need additional support to whatever degree in that setting. Someone else was waving at me a minute ago.

I am more than happy to wave in a friendly manner in this festive sitting. As usual, I draw attention to my declaration in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests of my membership of the GMB and USDAW. We have heard the phrase “academy freedoms”, with a lot of emphasis put on freedoms. We have also heard the Minister confirm that diversity is not being lost in terms of educational choice. We have heard that teaching assistants, according to the Low Pay Commission, have unfortunately been defined as low-paid workers. Does the hon. Gentleman accept that the only “freedom” —I use inverted commas there, for the sake of the record—being lost is the ability of academies and free schools to pay poorly?

I understand the point that the hon. Gentleman makes, but I caution him against this presumption that those academies want to pay poorly, somehow mistreat their staff or set pay rates so low that most of us would think that it was an absurdity. I am not sure that they do; I am not sure that anybody wants to pay their staff as low as they can get away with. Those academies often advertise and appeal for staff, be they teaching assistants, teachers, ancillary staff or whoever, in a manner that actually makes them more attractive than the other offerings. That is part of the freedom to set up the school in the way that they wish and to ultimately deliver the best possible outcome for the children they are teaching and preparing for their future lives.

I come back to the point that if we start stripping away the freedoms and rights of those establishments to have local control, in this case around employment, I do not see any other natural conclusion than trying to bring our entire educational establishment back into being one single style of education. There may be some on the left—I say “the left” broadly; I am not just looking at the Labour party—who would welcome going back to simply having the secondary modern or whatever it might be. To be fair to her, the hon. Member for Chippenham agreed with me on the point of diversity and choice in education. It is a huge strength and a benefit to all children in this country that we have that level of different offering and choice in our educational establishment, and it has made our country fundamentally better. For total fairness, I repeat the fact that it was the last Labour Government who introduced academies.

I reassure my hon. Friend that the danger he is talking about is not just hypothetical. Special advisers in the Department for Education have briefed the newspapers, calling free schools a “Tory vanity project”. I find that absolutely appalling, as somebody who believes—

Yes, and free schools have the academy freedoms that we are talking about undermining with this and other legislation. I just wanted to draw that example to my hon. Friend’s attention.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend; he is always reassuring. He raised an important point. Given that, as he highlighted, free schools enjoy the same freedoms —they are specifically referred to in amendment 168—as academies, I am worried that the Government’s attitude to free schools indicates that they are rowing back on support for them.

The shadow Minister keeps referring to freedoms, but does he accept that the only freedom that would be given to academies by virtue of this amendment would be the freedom to pay their staff—I am not saying that they would—lower than the national terms and conditions?

I come back to this point of principle: either we have autonomous bodies that can make their own decisions or we do not. If the Government’s answer is that we do not, I certainly understand why they do not want this amendment, but I do not understand why they persist with their support for that which they created in the first place—the academisation of so many schools—and resist making the more straightforward argument for a one-size-fits-all education policy. I hope they do not adopt such a policy, because of the progress that the Labour party made through academisation in the first place. However, that is the natural conclusion of what the Minister is saying.

I refer to my membership of the Community and GMB unions. In the break, the shadow Minister challenged me, saying that I had been very quiet this morning—I was feeling festive, but perhaps I am feeling less festive now. Let us take the analogy about choice that he is trying to set out and put it in a slightly different context. Private limited companies are often seen as the drivers of growth, and we have heard lots about that from the Opposition. Those companies have lots of freedoms to make decisions and to invest where they want, but they are all subject to the national minimum wage. Is the shadow Minister suggesting that a national set of terms and conditions will remove academies’ freedom to make entrepreneurial decisions? I am interested to hear whether the Conservative party’s position is now that the national minimum wage should also be abolished.

No. I did challenge the hon. Gentleman on his quietness in the morning sitting, and he has not disappointed this afternoon, but of course that is not the position of the official Opposition. The last Labour Government brought in the national minimum wage, but the last Conservative Government brought in the national living wage. We are absolutely committed to that, but it is a rule that applies equally and evenly across every sector in the economy. In schedule 3 and amendment 168, we are talking about a specific carve-out of an existing position for one specific sector.

I beg to move amendment 65, in schedule 3, page 116, line 6, leave out “education”.

This amendment, and amendments 66, 67, 69, 70 and 71, make a minor drafting correction.

Amendments 66 and 67, and 69 to 71, make minor drafting corrections to the clauses to remove the word “education” when referring to local authorities. This is necessary because of an error in terminology used in the Bill on introduction.

I will also speak to amendment 68. We know that academy trusts use a range of innovative practices to support staff in a range of roles. The sector and the workforce have evolved since the previous negotiating body for school support staff existed in 2009. That is why we intend to consult on the definition of support staff in scope and appropriate protections for staff in transitioning to the new arrangements. The consultation may bring to our attention staff in academy trusts who are not captured by the existing definition of support staff, working wholly at one or more academies, but who we think should be. Having the ability to broaden the scope, as well as to exclude staff types in secondary legislation, would give us more flexibility to respond to the consultation.

As the Minister said, amendment 68 extends the definition of school support staff in the Bill to include people who do not work in an academy, but who are employed by the proprietor of an academy to carry out particular kinds of work, to be specified in regulations—it is our old friend, waiting for future regulations to be laid before the House—for the purposes of one or more academies. The other amendments in this grouping are minor drafting corrections, and we accept that. I merely want to put on record once more that had this Bill not been so rushed to meet the arbitrary political 100-day deadline, we might not be in this place, and we might have had greater clarity from the get-go. We accept, however, that these are fundamentally minor amendments that really should have been included at introduction.

The shadow Minister’s comments are noted, and I commend the amendments to the Committee.

Amendment 65 agreed to.

Amendments made: 66, in schedule 3, page 116, line 8, leave out “education”.

See the explanatory statement for amendment 65.

Amendment 67, in schedule 3, page 116, line 10, leave out “education”.

See the explanatory statement for amendment 65.

Amendment 68, in schedule 3, page 116, line 13, leave out from “employment” to end of line 14 and insert “which—

(i) provides for the person to work wholly at one or more Academies, or

(ii) provides for the person to carry out work of a prescribed description for the purposes of one or more Academies.”

This amendment extends the definition of “school support staff” in new Part 8A of the Education Act 2002 to include people who do not work at an Academy but are employed by the proprietor of an Academy to carry out particular kinds of work (to be specified in regulations) for the purposes of one or more Academies.

Amendment 69, in schedule 3, page 123, line 31, leave out “education”.

See the explanatory statement for amendment 65.

Amendment 70, in schedule 3, page 123, line 33, leave out “education”.

See the explanatory statement for amendment 65.

Amendment 71, in schedule 3, page 124, line 13, leave out “education”.—(Justin Madders.)

See the explanatory statement for amendment 65.

I beg to move amendment 123, in schedule 3, page 124, line 39, at end insert—

“(2A) Before making or revising arrangements under sub-paragraph (1), the Secretary of State must publish and lay before Parliament an impact assessment of the costs on the education sector of any proposed arrangements.”

This amendment makes a requirement from the Secretary of State to undertake an impact assessment of the costs on the education sector before making or changing arrangements related to the School Support Staff Negotiating Body.

Amendment 123 requires the Secretary of State to undertake an impact assessment of the costs to the education sector before making or changing arrangements related to the school support staff negotiating body. I have already spoken, probably at greater length than anybody particularly wished me to, about our reservations over the re-establishment of the body—in particular the way that it will override the traditional academy freedoms that seem to trigger Government Members so much.

I am interested in what assessment the Secretary of State has undertaken about the current arrangements for pay and conditions for support staff, and in whether the Minister can provide concrete evidence about the shortcomings and how those would be rectified by re-establishing the school support staff negotiating body. In other words, is the policy driven by evidence or by ideology? The amendment asks for the Secretary of State to come clean about the costs of the proposed arrangements, not just to the schools budget but to pupils in schools.

We had some back-and-forth earlier about how, if they are to work, the changes made by the Bill need to marry up with the real-life pay settlements and budgets made available by the Treasury. Otherwise, the net result will be that schools will have to obey the rules as set out in the Bill without getting any additional money to pay for doing so. Who will suffer if the school is asked to do that? It will be the children and pupils, because of the number of textbooks, laptops, iPads or interactive screens and boards—all the things that are used in education—that the school can buy.

I am trying to understand what the shadow Minister means by cost to the education sector. Does he mean the running cost of the body itself or the cost of an agreement? If he means the latter, how could that possibly be accounted for when, as we have heard, any new pay scale is likely to be some years away and would be subject to negotiation?

The answer is, of course, both. There will be a cost to the body and a cost to the individual education establishments—the academies, free schools and so on—that still fundamentally rely on a funding settlement. One pot of money can only go so far. I accept that the body itself will be separately funded, but the pay awards that individual schools would have to make will not. If schools are being asked to swallow the cost, they will have to find it within their budgets.

I am sure that I am not alone in having visited schools—other hon. and right hon. Members will have done so in their own constituencies—where headteachers say that they have to have this debate when setting their budget every year. Over the decades, Governments of all political persuasions have given them things to deliver and rules to follow but only one pot of money, so something has to give. If they are to follow the rules, the ones who suffer are children, through the equipment and books that the school is able to purchase.

The amendment is a reasonable one. It requires one of those impact assessments, so that we can all be absolutely clear. When we vote, in whichever way, on this Bill as it passes through Committee, Report and Third Reading, as well as ping-pong with the other place, we can be really clear about what these provisions mean on the ground for real schools and real children going through their education. As I think we all accept, that is so important to their future lives.

Amendment 124 requires the annual reports of the school support staff negotiating body to include the cost of pay and conditions agreements. We believe it is important that there is transparency over the additional costs and burdens that this new body will impose on school employers. What might those costs be? Will the Department for Education appropriately compensate school employers for them? I will not repeat the arguments that I made on amendment 123, but the point is fundamentally the same. The amendments are designed to probe the Government properly on what the measure will mean in the real world.

I want to come back on some of the points that the shadow Minister raised. I appreciate his clarification about exactly what information the Opposition are trying to tease out with amendment 124. I hope he does not mind me saying that the cost of any future settlement agreement is speculative in nature. We heard from the Minister earlier that part of the remit that Ministers will give the body will be about affordability and the funding available at the time. It will probably be several years in the future when that new pay scale comes into force, albeit that there is some good work that the SSSNB could be getting on with in the interim that would have very low costs for the sector.

We have some information about how much the body itself would cost. An answer to a written parliamentary question in 2011 put the estimated cost saving of abolishing the SSSNB at £1.4 million over the spending review period. That was about £350,000 a year. In today’s prices, we are looking at close to half a million. That is a very small fraction of a percentage of the Department’s budget, and it is probably an overestimate given that civil service wages have not kept pace with inflation over that time. The former education spokesperson for the Labour party, Andy Burnham, who was involved in the setting up of the original SSSNB, described it as a “low-cost panel”. That is exactly what we are talking about here. I hope that that provides some reassurance that amendment 124 is not necessary.

The SSSNB produced annual reports, which were published by the Government in the normal way. The Department for Education tracks the costs of school support staff pay increases. That information is made available, including to sector representatives, through the schools and academies funding group. I hear what the shadow Minister says, but I do not think these amendments are necessary because the information is unknowable or already available, or it will be made available in the normal course of business.

I thank the shadow Minister for tabling amendment 123 and 124 and for raising these issues. The Department will assess the cost implications of the constitutional arrangements of the SSSNB prior to constituting it, but it would be disproportionate to require an impact assessment. My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Northfield referred to some costs; those costs have not necessarily been pinned down at this stage, but they are clearly below the level at which a formal impact assessment would normally be required. It is envisaged that the costs of the body will be limited to administrative expenses and fees, so we do not think that amendment 124 is necessary.

The Bill requires the constitutional arrangements for the SSSNB to provide for it to prepare annual reports; it allows the Secretary of State to specify the manner in which reports are published. Assessing the impact on the education sector of agreements reached will be important, prior to the Secretary of State’s ratification of any agreements. We anticipate that the Department for Education will undertake an assessment of affordability and impact, as it will be better placed to do so than the SSSNB itself. It is important to note that there will be employers on the SSSNB who will be part of the body making those recommendations, so they will have those considerations at the forefront of their mind.

Considerations of cost and affordability will be an important part of any discussions and negotiations that take place in the SSSNB. Annual reports are likely to set out the work undertaken by the body, but the exact detail of what will be in the annual reports will be agreed at a later date; I do not think that it would be appropriate to specify that in the Bill.

I cannot remember a single time in the last Parliament when the then Opposition would have made the case that there was no need for an impact assessment. I put that to the Minister very gently as a point of principle that is specific to amendments 123 and 124. However, I understand the argument that he is making.

The Opposition still think that the Bill’s approach is flawed as to diversity across our educational establishments. We will not press our amendments to a Division now, but we reserve the right to revisit the matter when we come up for air on Report, once the Minister has had time to reflect on the implications of his policy. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Question proposed, That the schedule, as amended, be the Third schedule to the Bill.

As the Committee has discussed, clause 28 introduces schedule 3, which provides for the establishment, remit and functioning of the school support staff negotiating body. Paragraph 1 of schedule 3 will insert into the Education Act 2002 a new part 8A, which contains proposed new sections 148A to 148R.

New section 148A will reinstate the SSSNB as an unincorporated body. Reinstating the SSSNB will give school support staff the voice and recognition that they deserve as a crucial part of the school workforce. It will help to address the recruitment and retention challenges facing schools and will drive standards in schools to ensure that we give every child the best possible chance in life.

New section 148B sets out the remit of the SSSNB for remuneration, terms and conditions of employment, training and career progression of school support staff, and the powers of the Secretary of State to define what is or is not to be treated as falling within those categories within the regulations. This ensures clarity over the remit of the SSSNB and what can and cannot be referred to it by the Secretary of State. The remit will lead to a national terms and conditions handbook, fair pay rates and clearer training and career progression routes for school support staff in England.

New section 148C defines school support staff in relation to who they are employed by and their role. Support staff are defined as all staff, other than qualified teachers, who are employed by local authorities, governing bodies and academy trusts to work wholly at schools in England. The 2009 SSSNB included only those support staff employed by local authorities and governing bodies to work in maintained schools within its scope. Support staff employed by academy trusts are now included in the SSSNB’s remit, despite the shadow Minister’s attempts to persuade us otherwise.

It is crucial that the body have a remit for all state-funded schools in England to achieve greater national consistency, irrespective of the type of school in which support staff work. Roughly half of the 24,453 schools in England are now academies, compared with approximately 200 in 2009 when the body was previously established. New section 148B gives the Secretary of State a power to prescribe in regulations those who will not fall within the SSSNB’s remit.

Amendment 68 will allow the Secretary of State to include, through secondary legislation, those who do not work wholly at academies within the SSSNB’s remit, by reference to the type of work that they do. The Department currently holds limited information about the roles in which support staff are employed in academies or the terms and conditions under which they work. It intends to consult on which roles should and should not be within scope of these provisions. These powers will provide the necessary flexibility to respond to that consultation and amend the remit of the SSSNB as necessary.

New section 148D sets out the power of the Secretary of State to refer matters to the SSSNB that are within its remit, namely those matters relating to remuneration, terms and conditions of employment and training and career progression of school support staff. Referrals by the Secretary of State to the negotiating body will mean that those representing employers and employees can agree and advise on suitable outcomes for school support staff within the parameters set out by the Secretary of State in relation to wider Government priorities and context.

New sections 148E and 148F set out the powers of the Secretary of State when referring matters relating to remuneration, terms and conditions of employment and training and career progression to the SSSNB. The Secretary of State may specify factors that the SSSNB must consider and a timescale for their consideration. The new sections set out the steps that the SSSNB must take, depending on whether it has or has not reached agreement on matters relating to terms and conditions. Where the Secretary of State refers a matter relating to the training and career progression of school support staff to the SSSNB, the SSSNB is required to provide a report on the matter to the Secretary of State, rather than reaching agreement.

New section 148G will give the SSSNB the power to consider matters within its remit that have not been referred to it, with the Secretary of State’s agreement. This will give the SSSNB the ability to raise alternative matters that it wishes to negotiate or advise on. Agreement from the Secretary of State is required from the outset to ensure that no work is undertaken on a matter that could be considered to be outside the SSSNB’s remit. It will also ensure that the body has sufficient capacity to consider referred matters within the required timescale, alongside any additional matters that the SSSNB wishes to consider.

New section 148H sets out the Secretary of State’s powers in relation to agreements submitted by the SSSNB. The Secretary of State may ratify an agreement in secondary legislation in full or in part—if in part, the part not ratified falls away—or refer the agreement back to the SSSNB to reconsider it under new section 148I. This power is necessary to ensure that any agreements are practicable—for example, that they are affordable—before being incorporated into contracts. The ability for the Secretary of State to ratify agreements in part is a pragmatic approach to allow matters with agreement to progress and to avoid delays if there is an element of an agreement that the Secretary of State is not content to agree.

New section 148I sets out what happens where the Secretary of State refers a matter back to the body for reconsideration. The Secretary of State may specify factors to which the body must have regard in reconsidering the agreement and by when it must revert.

New section 148J will apply where the SSSNB has submitted an agreement to the Secretary of State after reconsideration. The Secretary of State has powers to ratify the agreement in full or in part in regulations; to refer the agreement back to the SSSNB for reconsideration; to make regulations requiring prescribed people to have regard to the agreement in exercising prescribed functions; or to make regulations that make alternative provision in relation to the same matter. The new section gives the Secretary of State a range of powers to determine the best course of action based on the agreements from the SSSNB to ensure that the desired outcomes for school support staff are met and are practicable.

New section 148K sets out the process if an agreement cannot be reached by the SSSNB on a matter relating to school support staff remuneration and terms and conditions referred to it by the Secretary of State. The Secretary of State may specify a later date by which agreement must be reached or may make regulations in relation to the matter referred to the SSSNB if there is an urgent need to do so, but the Secretary of State must consult the SSSNB before making those regulations. This will ensure that the Secretary of State is able to regulate as necessary in the event that agreement cannot be reached, for instance on a pay award for school support staff.

New section 148L sets out the Secretary of State’s powers if the SSSNB fails to submit a report on a matter relating to the training and career progression of school support staff by the deadline set by the Secretary of State. The Secretary of State can specify a later date for the SSSNB to report or issue guidance on the matter. This ensures that the Secretary of State can still issue guidance on training and career progression to support recruitment and retention in the absence of a report from the body.

New section 148M sets out the effect of regulations made by the Secretary of State that ratify agreements reached by the SSSNB in full or in part. The terms of the agreement are imposed in a person’s contract of employment so that a member of school support staff must be paid and treated in accordance with those conditions. Any inconsistent terms in contracts of employment or academy funding agreements have no effect. That allows the Secretary of State to make changes to the pay and terms and conditions of school support staff as agreed by the SSSNB, in order to ensure fairer pay rates and greater national consistency, boost recruitment and retention in those roles, and drive improved standards in schools.

New section 148N sets out the effect of regulations made by the Secretary of State where she decides not to ratify agreements reached by the SSSNB or where the SSSNB fails to reach agreement on a matter. Where the Secretary of State decides to make regulations imposing terms and conditions into school support staff contracts, for example because there is an urgent need to make changes to terms and conditions and the SSSNB has failed to reach agreement on them, school support staff must be paid and treated in accordance with those terms and conditions. It is important that the Secretary of State has the ability to legislate to provide fair terms and conditions for school support staff in the event that the SSSNB fails to reach an agreement.

New section 148O will allow regulations made under part 8A to have retrospective effect, subject to their not subjecting anyone to a detriment in respect of a period that falls before the date on which the regulations are made. This will allow the Secretary of State to backdate pay awards agreed after the start of an annual pay period to ensure that school support staff may benefit from them for the entirety of the period.

New section 148P sets out how and when the Secretary of State and the SSSNB can issue guidance on matters within the SSSNB’s remit. The SSSNB, with the Secretary of State’s approval, can issue guidance on pay and terms and conditions, as can the Secretary of State. Only the Secretary of State can issue guidance on training and career progression. Local authorities, governing bodies and academy trusts are required to have regard to guidance issued. This will allow the Secretary of State and the SSSNB to support employers in the implementation of new terms and conditions and the promotion of training and career progression opportunities for school support staff.

New section 148Q will provide a carve-out for the SSSNB framework from the collective bargaining provisions in the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992. The new section is necessary to ensure that agreements reached by the SSSNB can be imposed in contracts only through ratification by the Secretary of State.

Paragraph 2 of schedule 3 will insert a new schedule 12A into the Education Act 2002. New schedule 12A includes provision for the SSSNB to be constituted in accordance with arrangements made by the Secretary of State. School support staff and employer representative organisations on the SSSNB will be set out in secondary legislation; the Secretary of State will be required to consult the TUC before prescribing which organisations represent school support staff.

The membership of the SSSNB will include support staff, employee and employer representatives, an independent chair and a representative of the Secretary of State. It may also include members who do not represent school support staff or their employers. However, only school support staff and employer representatives will have voting rights. The new schedule also provides for administrative support to be provided to the SSSNB, including for the Secretary of State to pay expenses for the chair and for administrative costs incurred by the SSSNB. The SSSNB is required to provide a report for each 12-month period.

I commend schedule 3, as amended, to the Committee.

After that lengthy oration from the Minister, I can only conclude that when it takes that long to explain something, a bureaucracy is coming that probably nobody wants. As we rehearsed during our debates on amendments to the schedule, it challenges in many respects the freedoms that some of our education establishments enjoy.

As the Bill leaves Committee at some point in January and heads back to the main Chamber for Report, I urge the Minister to reach out to educational establishments—and perhaps to the Department for Education, but real-world schools are probably better—and reflect on the impact that this new bureaucracy will have on them. Is it as streamlined as it can humanly be? The Minister was on his feet for seven or eight minutes trying to explain that bureaucracy. In fairness, he did a commendable job of it, but that does not necessarily make it right. Whether we are in opposition or in government proposing things, we too rarely ask ourselves in the House: have we collectively got this right?

The Opposition believe that this new body—which we in government, along with the Liberal Democrats, removed—should not be brought back in. There is a better way of achieving some of the noble aims that the Government have in this regard and avoiding some of the potential catastrophes that we spoke about earlier. We therefore cannot support the schedule remaining in the Bill.

We have covered a huge amount of ground in this debate, so I will restrict my remarks to a few matters that have been raised. I say to the shadow Minister that if he thought that the Minister’s summary was bureaucratic and difficult to follow, he should sit through some meetings of the National Joint Council for Local Government Services, which is the dominant mode through which pay and terms and conditions are set.

It is worth reflecting briefly on some of the practical issues in schools that can be remedied through this new approach. It is a well-known problem that schoolteachers’ and school support staff’s pay award dates are misaligned. For schoolteachers, it is September; for school support staff, it is April, with the financial year. That can be a nightmare for bursars, school business managers and large employers, who have to plan their budgets with that significant difference.

In a previous life, I sat through a working group convened by the Local Government Association through the NJC on a vexed issue: how can school support staff’s work out of term-time be calculated on a term-time-only contract, because they are accumulating annual leave but cannot take all of it during term? It was a bit like a version of this Committee that reached no conclusions and never ended. These are real problems that result from the ossification of the NJC system. It is not appropriate for school support staff workers. As we all know, when a pay and grading system becomes ossified, legal danger lurks for employers in the inconsistencies that emerge.

There is no justification for saying that TA level 2 means something completely different in neighbouring authorities. That can become a block on people’s progression and ambitions to relocate. Multi-academy trusts and other academy employers overwhelmingly remain subscribed to the NJC, because this system of pay and grading, which has grown up over decades, is labyrinthine and difficult to follow, and most academy trusts do not have the HR and payroll functions to put something new in place.

We can put some figures on this. The school workforce census carried out by the Department for Education collects data on NJC coverage compared with other pay gradings. For local authority maintained schools, 80% of school support staff are paid on NJC grades, when non-responses are excluded. For academies, the figure is 77%, so there is no huge difference between the two sectors. Even among the remainder, some staff are employed under separate agreements with Soulbury terms, so are quite separate, and a high proportion—possibly even the majority—are paid on NJC-like terms and conditions, although there might be some local improvements to those pay gradings. That is the issue that the Confederation of School Trusts raised in its written evidence, and I think it has been addressed through this Committee. We are seeking to establish a floor, not a ceiling, so local improvements can still be made where employers and trade unions agree them.

The clause takes a lot from the lessons that were learned from the previous iteration of the SSSNB, which is welcome. The clauses on the adult social care negotiating body contain a general provision that any specified matter relating to employment could be referred to that body. Proposed new section 148J is drafted a bit more tightly for the SSSNB—at least, that is my reading of it—so I wonder whether there is a case for aligning the wording for the two bodies.

Let me go back to why we are doing this. School support staff are the hidden professionals in the education system. I did not just represent school support staff; I was once a school governor in a specialist SEND setting, and there were school support staff and teaching assistants. It is important to remember that the term covers site staff, cleaners, caterers and all sorts of other workers, who often do not get talked about. Those workers make lifesaving interventions—they may have to administer medicine or perform a medical intervention that literally keeps a child alive—but they are paid about £14,000 a year. That represents a failure of central Government to account for the pay, conditions and wellbeing of all the people who work in schools. The measures we are discussing are hugely important and welcome, and it is very welcome that the Bill has been brought forward this early in the Parliament.

I am grateful for Members’ contributions. The shadow Minister gently joshed me about the technical detail but, as my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Northfield pointed out, that is the nature of the beast: it is important that all eventualities are covered. We have not reinvented the wheel here; we have lifted much of what was already in place for the previous iteration of this body, and we have taken some further learnings from that.

On my hon. Friend’s points, we have not needed to take the broader powers of the adult social care body, which we will discuss shortly, because the clauses relating to the SSSNB give it a remit to negotiate terms and conditions, as well as advise on training and career progression. That is broader than its 2009 remit, and we think it covers the areas that are recognised as those that need to be included, in addition to the powers the body had in 2009. Of course, the Bill has to be detailed—it has to be right—because it will affect 800,000 people, and a lot of people in that workforce are on low pay, have poor career prospects and are frustrated at the lack of progression in their job. When setting up such a body, it is important to cover all eventualities.

This is not a novel concept, but it is an important step forward in our industrial relations in this country, and in tackling low pay and insecurity. I am proud that we are able to discuss it today.

Question put, That the schedule, as amended, be the Third schedule to the Bill.

I beg to move amendment 121, in clause 29, page 41, line 34, at end insert—

“(5A) No regulations may be made under this section before the Secretary of State has published and laid before Parliament an impact assessment of the costs on the social care sector of any proposed Adult Social Care Negotiating Body.”.

This amendment makes a requirement from the Secretary of State to undertake an impact assessment of the costs on the social care sector of any newly proposed Negotiating Body.

Amendment 121 would require the Secretary of State to undertake an impact assessment of the costs on the social care sector of any newly proposed negotiating body. Amendments 121 and 122 mirror those tabled in relation to the school support staff negotiating body that we have just spent the best part of an hour and a half debating. That is because our concern is essentially identical: that this is ideologically driven policy, not evidence-based policy.

Can the Minister provide the Committee with the evidence that the adult social care negotiating body is necessary? Has the Department of Health and Social Care made any assessment of the additional costs that may be incurred by the sector? Given that social care is provided across multiple platforms—to use a generic term—from the NHS to local government to many private sector providers, this measure will cross a number of sectors responsible for providing social care, and it is important that there is a cross-governmental impact assessment alongside it that provides a clear understanding of the costs involved to all parties, particularly local government, which is facing extraordinary pressures at the moment.

We have seen what has happened with councils such as Birmingham, which reached the point of bankruptcy, and with other councils that are under considerable financial pressure. When I speak to my council in Buckinghamshire, I hear that much of that pressure is driven by social care. It is a good problem to have; medical advances and technologies are ensuring that people have longer lives, but there is then the requirement for adult social care for far longer than was previously the case. The burden of that is falling disproportionately on local government budgets at the moment, and the Deputy Prime Minister and her Department need a clear understanding of the impact on the local government cost base.

The shadow Minister will not be surprised to learn that we do not support his amendments. Amendment 121 seeks to require an assessment of the impact of the new negotiating body on the adult social care sector. The Government have already produced a comprehensive set of impact assessments for the Bill, including one on the fair pay agreement for adult social care. That was published on Second Reading and was based on the best available evidence regarding the potential impact on businesses, workers and the wider economy.

The adult social care fair pay agreement will be subject to sector-wide collective bargaining and negotiation. At this stage, our impact assessment provides an illustrative analysis of its potential impact, including the magnitude of the cost to businesses, as well as the benefits for up to 1.6 million social care workers. We intend to refine that analysis over time, working closely with businesses, trade unions, academics and, of course, the Department of Health and Social Care.

As is standard practice, we will publish an enactment impact assessment once the Bill reaches Royal Assent, in line with the better regulation framework requirements. That will account for where the Bill has been amended in its passage through Parliament in such a way as to significantly change its impacts on business. That impact assessment will be published alongside the enacted legislation. In addition, the Government will produce an impact assessment to accompany regulations connected to the establishment of the negotiating body.

The Minister asked why the body is needed—what is the evidence base? He will be aware of the evidence given to the Committee, both orally and in writing, about its importance. The hon. Member for Chippenham spoke of the need for a level playing field, which is certainly a big part of what we are looking at here, because many of us will know from our experiences in our constituencies—never mind the evidence before the Committee—that, fundamentally, the adult social care sector is in desperate need of help. We have known that for a very long time, and if Members care to look at the Low Pay Commission’s recent reports, they will see that it has dedicated a considerable amount of space in them to the challenges in the sector. Trade unions, of course, have also been calling for action in this area for many years.

It is also well known that there are huge recruitment and retention challenges in the adult social care workforce. It is a very large sector, employing about 1.6 million workers, which is about 5% of all people in adult employment, and it plays an important role. The people in those roles are predominantly women and, as was noted during the evidence sessions—and backed up by the analysis in the impact assessment—there are about 130,000 vacancies at the moment. It was also noted that filled posts have reduced by 4% recently, and that the shortfall since 2022 has been plugged primarily by overseas workers, which we know is a topic of great interest.

The turnover rate in the sector is incredibly high: it has been higher than 25% since 2016 and was consistently over 30% between 2017-18 and 2022-23. There were some improvements last year, but that was largely driven by international recruitment, and the turnover rate is generally much higher than the UK average. The impact assessment notes that, while some movement is healthy, the higher rates witnessed can be disruptive and impact not only productivity, but the quality of service, with recipients of care not getting continuity. I think we can all recognise the situation in which a person in receipt of care has a different person turning up every day and how disruptive that can be. It is important to note that recipients of care, and not just the workers, will benefit from the Bill.

We know that low pay is rife, as has been identified by the Low Pay Commission. In December 2023, the average wage was £11, and nearly 70% of workers were paid within £1 of the minimum wage. In the last two reports by the Low Pay Commission, space has been dedicated to underpayment in the sector. In its latest report, the Low Pay Commission said:

“In the social care sector, non-compliance appears persistent”.

The shadow Minister asked a wider point about travel costs. He will no doubt welcome the announcement in the Budget that we are freezing fuel duty, but the cost of travel is a much broader issue than the point he raised. Clause 30 will allow broader questions of terms and conditions to be considered. Clause 39 is also important, because it deals with record keeping. We know from research by Unison that about one quarter of domiciliary care workers are repaid only for travel time, and only 18% of them have the travel time listed on their payslips. Given that these people often earn close to the minimum wage, this is an absolute scandal that needs to be addressed. The shadow Minister made an important point about travel, but we hope that the fundamentals of ensuring that people are paid for that travel time will be addressed by the negotiating body.

Let me turn to amendment 122. The Government are committed to engaging with the adult social care sector on the design of a fair pay agreement, including how the negotiating body will be set up, how it should operate and how negotiations will run. The powers under clause 29 allow for the Secretary of State to create the adult social care negotiating body by regulations and to provide for the smooth and efficient running of that body. The regulations will confirm the type of body being created. The power also allows for reporting requirements to be imposed on the negotiating body, such as producing reports. Engagement with the sector will ultimately influence the type of body that the negotiating body actually becomes. All public bodies have specific reporting requirements to meet transparency standards.

I can confirm that the Department of Health and Social Care has committed to publishing an impact assessment on establishing fair pay agreements in the adult social care sector to accompany the secondary legislation required to establish the negotiating body. It is intended that the assessment will include an analysis of the potential costs and benefits that will arise from a fair pay agreement. On that basis, I invite the shadow Minister to withdraw his amendment.

I am grateful to the Minister for his remarks, and not least for acknowledging the importance of the points about just travel time and about compensation for using one’s own vehicle and having to purchase the petrol, diesel, electricity, hydrogen or whatever to get around—in a brave new world, who knows what it might be? I invite him to ensure that that can be locked into, whatever the negotiating body has the power to do. I say that not least for rural communities such as mine, where it is not unusual for someone to have to travel for half an hour between many of the villages, and from one person they are caring for to another. That adds up very quickly in terms of not just time, but the cost of the fuel to get them there and the wear and tear on the vehicle’s brakes, tyres and so on.

We will not press these amendments to a Division. However, as the Minister reflects on this issue, I urge him to again ensure that the way in which this new body will inevitably be set up accounts for the multiple different platforms of provision across local government, the private sector and the not-for-profit sector, which the hon. Member for Chippenham talked about. This is a much more complex arena than that of schools, which is much more heavily defined—we spoke about that earlier. I urge the Minister to reflect on that as he potentially brings forward Government amendments or minor surgery to the Bill ahead of Report. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

As Committee members will have noticed, this is a significant group of clauses, which relate to the establishment of a negotiating body for the adult social care sector, a key element of the Government’s plan to make work pay. The body aims to address the long-term issues of low pay and poor retention in the adult social care sector.

The adult social care sector is large, with 1.59 million people working for it in England in 2023-24, which as I have already said is equivalent to 5% of all adults in employment. Poor terms and conditions are associated with higher staff turnover. For example, the Skills for Care annual report states that care workers were less likely to leave their posts if their employers paid above the 3% auto-enrolment rate for pensions, or paid more than statutory sick pay if care workers could not work due to illness. This is a key element of the Bill.

I will speak to each clause in turn. Clause 29 gives the Secretary of State the power to create the adult social care negotiating body by regulations, with the aim of negotiating a fair pay agreement within the adult social care sector. Giving specific powers to the Secretary of State in relation to the body is key to ensuring that the Government have the necessary powers to set up and design this body, and that will take place after engagement with the sector.

The clause ensures that the Secretary of State has the power to create a body that is appropriately made up of members including representatives from relevant trade unions and employers. It also enables regulations to provide for the smooth and efficient running of the body, and for it to be subject to reporting requirements. The Secretary of State will have the power to set out the body’s decision-making process and to make provision for any staff and facilities and for payment of fees and expenses.

Clause 30 defines the matters within the negotiating body’s remit—namely, the remuneration and other terms and conditions of employment of social care workers. The clause enables the body to cover not only pay, but wider terms and conditions of employment of adult social care workers.

We know that the adult social care sector is diverse, so the clause also allows the Secretary of State to add further matters to the remit of the body, provided they relate to a social care worker’s employment. The remit of the body can also be narrowed by the Secretary of State, who has the power to specify in regulations the types of social care worker that fall within the remit of the body.

Members will see that clause 31 defines “social care worker” as including those who work in, or are employed in connection with the provision of, adult social care. The clause specifically excludes from the definition of adult social care anything provided by an establishment or agency regulated by His Majesty’s chief inspector of education, children’s services and skills, to ensure that children’s services are not captured. The clause provides an essential definition of adult social care worker, which the other clauses refer to throughout. Without it, the remit of the body and the scope of the clauses would not be sufficiently defined.

Clause 32 sets out the power of the Secretary of State to make provision in regulations about the consideration by the negotiating body of matters within its remit. In accordance with regulations made under the clause, the Secretary of State will be able to specify conditions that any agreement must meet, such as on funding. It also allows regulations to provide that the body may consider only matters referred to it by the Secretary of State, such as specific terms and conditions for certain types of social care worker, and must take into account specified factors when coming to an agreement.

The regulations that can be made under clause 32 can impose information-sharing duties on the body’s members to enable efficient negotiation and require the body to submit any agreement to the Secretary of State for consideration. They also allow for the body to be allocated clear deadlines for discussion, so as not to delay this important process.

Clause 33 enables regulations to provide that the Secretary of State can refer agreements back to the negotiating body for reconsideration. Making provision for reconsideration of an agreement ensures that any agreement can be refined following review by the Secretary of State and that the Government are not forced to reject an agreement they are unable to implement. It also provides the Secretary of State with an appropriate safeguard to ensure that further work can be done, where necessary, to ensure that a suitable agreement is reached. The Secretary of State can also make regulations that provide for the same matters listed in clause 32.

Clause 34 allows the Secretary of State to make provision in regulations for circumstances where the negotiating body is unable to reach an agreement. Providing a clear process for the body to resolve roadblocks in reaching an agreement is key to ensuring that the body arrives at a conclusion that is agreeable to all parties. In regulations made under this clause, the Secretary of State will have the power to appoint someone to resolve the barriers to an agreement and confer the relevant dispute resolution powers on them.

Clause 35 allows the Secretary of State to ratify an agreement made by the negotiating body and thereby give it legal effect. That is essential to successful implementation and ensures that any agreement provides the maximum protection for affected workers. It allows for sufficient flexibility, because the Secretary of State can ratify part of an agreement, such as implementing some aspects through employment contracts, while leaving others that would be more appropriately implemented through codes of practice.

The regulations may have a retrospective effect, as outlined under clause 41. That is necessary to enable regulations to appropriately fill any gap between, for example, the body reaching an agreement and the subsequent regulations ratifying that agreement, and could be used to backdate a pay rise to the date previously agreed by the body. However, the retrospective effect is limited by appropriate safeguards: regulations cannot make provision that reduces remuneration or alters conditions of employment to a person’s detriment, in respect of a period before the date on which regulations are made.

Clause 36 explains that the effect of ratifying an agreement under clause 35 is to change the employment contracts of adult social care workers included in the scope of the agreement. The ratification regulations can change both the remuneration and the terms and conditions of employment contracts, depending on the content of the fair pay agreement. They also give precedence to the terms in ratified agreements over inconsistent terms in existing employment contracts. For example, if an agreement sets a new minimum hourly rate, that will take precedence over employment contracts that set out a lower rate, and so ensure that the employee enjoys the rate set out in the ratified agreement. The clause is essential to ensuring that any ratified agreement will be on a statutory footing and therefore legally implemented.

Clause 37 gives the Secretary of State the power to make provision in regulations when the body has notified the Secretary of State that it has been unable to reach an agreement. The Secretary of State’s powers under this clause are limited to those matters on which the body has failed to reach an agreement. The powers under the clause are similar to those in clause 35, and enable regulations to override the pay and other terms and conditions set out in social care workers’ contracts.

As under clause 35, the regulations may have a retrospective effect, as outlined under clause 41. That is necessary to enable regulations to appropriately fill any gap between, for example, the body reaching an agreement and the subsequent regulations ratifying that agreement, and could be used to backdate a pay rise to the date previously agreed by the body. However, the retrospective effect is limited by appropriate safeguards: regulations cannot make provision that reduces remuneration or alters conditions of employment to a person’s detriment, in respect of a period before the day on which regulations are made.

Clause 38 gives the Secretary of State the power to make regulations about the creation of guidance or codes of practice in relation to the agreements reached by the body. The clause also enables regulations to impose duties on specific persons in relation to provision in guidance or a code of practice, and makes provision around the consequences of failing to comply with those duties, including increased financial awards in any later court or tribunal proceedings. That will ensure that any pieces of guidance or codes of practice are appropriately followed, with appropriate consequences for parties that fail to comply.

Clause 39 gives the Secretary of State the power to make regulations imposing record-keeping obligations on employers. Similar provisions already exist for enforcing other aspects of employment law, such as the national minimum wage and the working time regulations. The clause therefore gives the power to apply the provisions under the National Minimum Wage Act 1998, to give social care workers a right of access to records. There may be new requirements under a ratified agreement that are not covered by existing record-keeping obligations, and without this clause the employer may not be able to provide evidence to enforcement authorities that the new requirements are being followed. We expect the fair work agency, upon its creation, to take on responsibility for the enforcement of the national minimum wage, including those record-keeping requirements.

Clause 40 will give the Secretary of State the power to make regulations about the enforcement of remuneration terms in ratified fair pay agreements. These regulations can apply enforcement mechanisms used under the National Minimum Wage Act 1998, notably the notices of underpayment regime, and the clause lists specific sections of that Act in relation to enforcement. We do not intend to introduce any criminal sanctions to enforce the fair pay agreement framework. That will ensure that any pay terms can be appropriately enforced by the state, ensuring that employees are effectively paid under the conditions of a ratified agreement. The clause also prevents double recovery of remuneration, ensuring that enforcement cannot take place twice—once for the national minimum wage and again for a ratified fair pay agreement—in respect of the same work.

Clause 41 gives the Secretary of State the power to create regulations under clauses 35 and 37 that have retrospective effect. As we have set out previously, that is to ensure that provision in terms of pay and conditions that falls after an agreement is reached and before the day on which regulations are made can have retrospective effect. That is necessary to enable regulations to appropriately fill any gap between the body reaching agreement and subsequent regulations being passed to ratify that agreement. Subsections (3) and (4) ensure transparency, creating an obligation to publish documents, such as the ratified agreement, that are referred to in the regulations.

Clause 42 makes further provision about the regulations that can be made under the powers in this chapter. These provisions are non-controversial, and they include the option for regulations to confer discretion on a person. That may be needed, for example, to give the chair of the body discretion to deal with a matter during the negotiation process or to give a third party discretion to resolve a dispute in accordance with the regulations under clause 34. Subsections (2) and (3) provide that ratification regulations will be subject to the negative resolution procedure, and any other regulations made under this chapter will be subject to the affirmative resolution procedure. That is because ratification relates to an agreement that has been reached by the negotiating body and assessed by the Secretary of State as being appropriate for ratification, and it would not be necessary to subject the ratification regulations to detailed parliamentary scrutiny.

Clause 43 simply allows regulations to provide that any actions or agreement by the body would not constitute collective bargaining or a collective agreement as defined in the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992. The Government have taken that approach because these clauses, and the regulations made under them, will create a new, separate legal framework under which fair pay agreements in the adult social care sector will be negotiated. For example, the clauses provide for a fair pay agreement to apply across the entire sector and to be legally binding when it is ratified in regulations.

That goes further than the 1992 Act, which sets different requirements for collective agreements to be legally binding and envisages that collective bargaining will be on a much smaller scale between one or more recognised trade unions and one or more employers or employer associations. The Government’s intention is very much for the negotiating body’s activities to be a form of collective bargaining, as a concept. It is simply that we cannot have two different legal frameworks to the same process.

Clause 44 is uncontroversial. It simply provides definitions for the terms used in this chapter and ensures that the definition of worker’s contract can cover agency workers who might not have a contract with their agent or the person they have been supplied to work for. That ensures that an agreement can be ratified for agency workers who do not have a contract with the agent or principal. The clause clarifies that references to a ratified agreement may also include references to parts of an agreement that have been ratified.

I am confident of the Government’s ability to deliver this flagship policy, supported by the Health Foundation, which indicated the strong case for improving pay and conditions in the social care sector in its written evidence to the Committee. Indeed, the same thing was noted in much of the evidence that we have heard in support of these measures. I commend clauses 29 to 44 to the Committee.

As we prepare to begin the 12 days of Christmas, we have the 16 clauses of the adult social care negotiating body. I am not sure which has the better ring to it, but I think only one ends with a partridge in a pear tree.

I have a few questions for the Minister after his impressive run-through of the 16 clauses. I might not have agreed with every word he said, but we have to acknowledge a powerful performance, and he went through such technical detail with such speed. In clause 29, yet again we have the powers to set up a body but only after engaging the sector. There is nothing wrong with engaging the sector, and we encourage regular engagement with any and every sector, but this is yet another example in the Bill of legislate first, consult second. That is always a concern whenever it comes up, and not least on clause 41, where the Minister repeatedly referred to certain retrospective powers.

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair once again, Ms Vaz. I remind the Committee about my membership of Unison.

We all want to live in a place we can call home, with people and things we love, in communities where we look out for one another and do the things that matter to us. Adult social carers support millions of people every day in that. The shadow Minister rightly spoke about the vital contribution made by social work carers who go to support people in their own homes, but there are other carers who support people who have highly complex needs to live in specialised settings. One of those people is my adult son, who has been in supported living for the last six years. It took a while to find him the right setting, but he is now living in a specialised service that accommodates people who have a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder, and I am pleased to say that he is thriving.

Members of the Committee may be aware that one of the defining characteristics of ASD is how neurodivergent people relate to, and connect with, the people who care for them. My son sees his carers as being part of an extended circle of trust—not family, but close. After all, why shouldn’t he? They support him with all his daily living needs. They plan his meals, accompany him to the shops to buy food, help him to cook it and keep him company while he eats it. They help him to do all the chores that any 26-year-old young man would rather not do at all. But far more importantly, the staff who care for my son help him in all aspects of his life so that he can achieve the best he can, whether through volunteering to build up his confidence or through educational opportunities to improve his prospects of work.

Many of these staff are highly skilled. I cannot speak highly enough of the work they do. They have worked in adult social care for many years and are dedicated to the people they care for, like my son, but others are new in the job and do not stay long. That is not as a result of not wanting to do the job, but of not being able to afford to stay in the job. In fact, some carers live in poverty. For young adults like my son, the turnover and lack of consistency in staff, which is no fault of the organisation that employs them, means that his extended circles of trust are continually broken down. That leads to a lack of engagement, which affects his mental health and wellbeing.

I wanted to talk about my lived experience to shed light on why the adult social care negotiating body and the whole Bill are so important, because we so need a step change in our attitude to social care. We must respect the work that social care workers do and value it more highly. Three quarters of those who work in the industry are women, and they earn around only 68% of the median salary for all UK employees. It is just not good enough. I welcome the negotiating body, which I believe will be a game changer in addressing low pay and insecure employment. It will send a powerful message to the 1.59 million social care workers in England to say, “You are valued, you are respected and you are part of a profession that I am proud to say the new Government are committed to supporting in the long term.”

I will deal with the point raised by the Liberal Democrat spokesperson and the shadow Minister first. This measure is about the practicality of negotiations. Clause 41 is not trying to say that the body will reach back in time to change workers’ terms and conditions; it is about the fair pay body agreeing terms and conditions, and the period between that agreement being reached and it then being ratified and passed in regulations by the Secretary of State.

For example, if the body said that from 1 April 2028, for argument’s sake, there would be an uplift of whatever pence or pounds an hour to everyone’s pay, and if the regulations enacting that were not passed until July of that year, the retrospectivity would be from July 2028 back to 1 April, so that pay can be included. That is normal in pay negotiations. That is all it is; it is not about trying to unpick previous agreements; it is about the way that anything agreed is implemented.

The shadow Minister said that we legislate first and consult second. As he will be aware, introducing a fair pay agreement in such a huge area of employment in this country is a novel and groundbreaking introduction to our legal system, so we need to put the legislative framework in place, which is what the Bill does. The detail and how it will work in practice is what the consultation and the secondary legislation will deal with. That is the proper way to do this, and that is how we will get this right. The Government are absolutely committed to getting this right. We absolutely recognise the terrible pay and conditions that lots of people in the adult social care sector face and the need for this kind of body to try and drive out those poor practices.

The shadow Minister asked about clause 33 and the ability of the Secretary of State to refer matters back to the negotiating body. He will of course understand that as the Bill is currently drafted the Secretary of State will need to pass regulations in order to enact many of the recommendations from the body. Some will be guidance, but that will still need the Secretary of State’s involvement. It simply would not be tenable for the Secretary of State to be compelled to pass legislation with which they did not agree, so I am sure that the shadow Minister will appreciate why that is in the Bill. We hope that that does not come to pass—it would clearly not be in the spirit of what we are trying to achieve—but we have no way of knowing what the future holds in that respect. It is therefore important for the Secretary of State, who is the person responsible for this system, to have the final say on such matters.

I took careful notes, and we can check Hansard later, but I am pretty certain that the Minister himself used the word sufficient in his remarks.

We may have to write to the hon. Member on that. Having furiously double-checked clause 32 during the other hon. Members’ speeches, I cannot find the word sufficient.

My final point relates to the powerful contribution from my hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough and Whitby about her personal circumstances and how important it is that we get this right. It is people such as her son who have benefited from good support in social care, and at the end of the day, they are the people who will benefit from stability and security in the workforce and better retention rates. This is about the workforce, but it is also about the people who receive the care, and it is about time that we gave them more priority. That is why these clauses are so important, and I therefore commend them to the Committee.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 29 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clauses 30 to 44 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

On a point of order, Ms Vaz. I thank all those who have worked behind the scenes—the Clerks and other staff—to ensure that the Committee has run smoothly. We have had some very interesting debates and made good progress with the Bill. I wish everyone involved a very merry Christmas and a happy new year. No doubt we will see many of them in January.

Further to that point of order, Ms Vaz. I seek your guidance on how we might put it on the record that we wish a very merry Christmas to everyone involved in this Bill Committee. I might not agree with every word of the Bill, but I appreciate all the work that the civil servants put into supporting the Minister and the Government—and, likewise, for the Opposition, the hard work of all the Clerks, as well as Hansard, the Doorkeepers and security. I wish Members of all parties a very merry Christmas.