“In the Education Act 2002, after subsection (3) insert—

“(3A) Where the Secretary of State proposes to make, revise or replace an order under subsection (3)(b) for any subject included in the National Curriculum, the Secretary of State shall appoint an independent review body (“the National Curriculum Review Body”) to develop recommendations for any such proposed order.

(3B) The Secretary of State shall set the scope of the National Curriculum Review Body’s review, which may include specifying the subjects or programmes of study to be considered and the timescale for producing recommendations.

(3C) In preparing its recommendations, the National Curriculum Review Body shall consult such persons as it considers appropriate, including (but not limited to) teachers, school leaders, parents, professional bodies, and subject experts.

(3D) Where the National Curriculum Review Body submits recommendations in accordance with subsection (3A), the Secretary of State must lay any proposed order with a statement of any modifications the Secretary of State proposes to make to the recommendations before Parliament.

(3E) A statutory instrument laid under subsection (3D) shall be subject to approval by resolution of each House of Parliament before it may come into force.

(3F) Any modifications made by the Secretary of State under subsection (3D) to the recommendations of the National Curriculum Review Body shall be subject to the same procedure for approval as set out in subsection (3E).””—(Neil O’Brien.)

Brought up, and read the First time.

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

The Government are obviously reviewing the national curriculum at the moment. During our earlier debates in Committee, my right hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire pointed out that control of the national curriculum is an incredible power, yet, to date, it has operated really on precedent, custom, tradition and everyone being reasonable. This new clause aims to formalise that process a bit more.

At the moment, of course, the Government are taking advice from an independent review—very sensibly—but, legally, they do not actually have to take account of that; they could make whatever decision they wanted. In another Bill—the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education (Transfer of Functions etc) Bill—the Government are centralising control over a whole bunch of stuff about qualifications and standards.

This new clause just sets up, for the first time, a proper process to formalise how the national curriculum is revised. It is an incredibly strong power and yet it is one that has operated—in one sense, nobly—on the assumption of everyone just behaving reasonably and people being “good chaps”, as it were, in the old parlance. This measure would put an actual formal legal process around such hugely important changes.

The current system for reviewing the curriculum works well, as the ongoing independent curriculum and assessment review shows, and has stood the test of time for successive Governments. The legislation gives Ministers the flexibility to review and develop the curriculum in the most appropriate way for the circumstances of the time, while requiring them to consult, and to provide Parliament with appropriate levels of scrutiny.

Requiring the creation of new organisations and processes is rarely the best way to improve outcomes. The proposed system would be inflexible and bureaucratic rather than helpful. New clause 55 would mean that, following any review of whether to change the national curriculum, such as through our curriculum and assessment review, the Secretary of State would have to set up another independent review to advise how to change the programmes of study.

Also, by requiring a positive, rather than negative, resolution of changes, and of any changes beyond the review’s recommendations, this measure could add unnecessary delays and uncertainty for teachers about what was going to be changed in the curriculum and when. On that basis, I invite the hon. Member to withdraw his amendment.

While our concerns remain, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.

Clause, by leave, withdrawn.