Academies Bill [Lords]

Baroness Primarolo Excerpts

Wednesday 21st July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[The Second Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Dawn Primarolo)]

Order. It may be helpful to remind the Committee that the Chair is not obliged to call Members who have not been in their place for the majority of the debate.

[Mr Mike Hancock]

I apologise for not being here for the whole debate, but I was at a Defence Committee meeting for most of it. I apologise to the Minister and the Opposition spokesman.

I am concerned by this Bill. I am disappointed that Labour has not thrown its weight behind the coalition’s proposals for academy schools, because that would have been a more honest approach, given that the Labour Government started this. I am still opposed to the proposals: I opposed Labour’s proposals and I oppose these ones.

I declare an interest in that I am still a member of Portsmouth city council and I have been a member of the LEA in one way or another for the past 40 years. I never personally felt that there was too much wrong with the LEA having responsibility for schools. In my experience, in the old county borough before the 1974 reorganisation, Portsmouth did a good job. Hampshire county council, of which I was the leader, also did a very good job for education, and now that the city council has the responsibility again it is doing its best.

--- Later in debate ---

[Damian Collins]

In Folkestone in my constituency, since the launch of the Folkestone academy, results have improved not only at that school but in all the others at secondary level in the town. The improvement at that school has certainly not been to the detriment of others in the same catchment area.

[The Second Deputy Chairman]

Order. We are not having a Second Reading or general debate on academies; we are debating amendments on admissions and exclusions, so I would be grateful if Members could stick to those points.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Iain Wright]

I beg to move amendment 20, page 1, line 22, at end insert—

(za) if the school is an additional school, the school meets a proven need for additional capacity in the area in which the school is situated;’.

[The Second Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means]

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following: amendment 50, in clause 9, page 7, line 4, at end insert—

‘(2A) For the purposes of subsection (2) “impact” refers to—

(a) the impact on funding for the other maintained schools, Academies and institutions within the further education sector situated in the area in which the additional school is (or is proposed to be) situated;

(b) the effect on social cohesion in the area in which the additional school is (or is proposed to be) situated;

(c) the impact on the balance of intake for the other maintained schools, Academies and institutions within the further education sector situated in the area in which the additional school is (or is proposed to be) situated; and

(d) other appropriate considerations.’.

New clause 3—Local policies in relation to additional schools—

(1) A local authority must at the annual general meeting of that authority publish a “Statement of current and future need” in relation to school places in that local authority area.

(2) This statement—

(a) may consider the need for further diversity of provision in a given area;

(b) may consider the satisfaction of local parents with existing schools;

(c) must have regard to social cohesion; and

(d) must have regard to population and the current and future demand for total school places.

(3) The Secretary of State must—

(a) satisfy himself that the additional school meets substantive needs as set out in the statement under subsection (1);

(b) where the additional school does not meet substantive needs set out in the statement under subsection (1) the Secretary of State must arrange for any substantive identified needs to be met; or

(c) must not enter into Academy arrangements for the additional school under consideration.’.

New clause 5—Inducements to pupils, parents or guardians—

‘No person or organisation may offer inducements to pupils, parents or guardians for the purposes of encouraging—

(a) attendance at a school;

(b) expressions of demand for the establishment of an additional school;

(c) recommending attendance at a school;

(d) participation in any consultation on the establishment of an additional school; or

(e) any public statement.’.

Amendment 29, in clause 9, page 7, line 9, leave out subsection (4).

Amendment 33, in clause 10, page 7, line 13, leave out subsection (1) and insert—

‘(1) Before entering into Academy arrangements with the Secretary of State in relation to an additional school, a person must consult—

(a) local parents and children,

(b) local schools,

(c) the relevant local authority,

(d) all school staff and their representatives, and

(e) any other persons deemed appropriate.’.

Amendment 5, page 7, line 14, leave out ‘such’ and insert—

(a) the local education authority for the area in which the additional school is (or is proposed to be) situated,

(b) the teachers at maintained schools, Academies and institutions within the further education sector in that area,

(c) the pupils at any establishment falling within paragraph (b),

(d) the parents of those pupils,

(e) such persons as, in the opinion of the person undertaking the consultation, represent the wider community, and

(f) such other’.

[Mr Wright]

This group of amendments seeks to address two fundamental weaknesses in the Bill, namely a chronic lack of consultation with relevant stakeholders and a failure to consider the capacity of the wider education system in an area where free-market schools may be established.

There is a shocking lack of consultation in the Bill, but the Schools Minister and his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State are conviction politicians and men of strength and leadership, so they have nothing to be frightened of. In the short time that the Secretary of State has been in office, however, he has demonstrated an unwillingness or an inability to consult on anything, whether it has been the Building Schools for the Future cuts or the indecent haste with which the House has had to scrutinise the Bill.

Let me illustrate that point with regard to the amendments. The National Governors Association, in its guidance to members about the legislation, stated:

“The Bill as it is currently drafted does not require you to consult anyone.”

A governing body can apply to become an academy without consulting teachers, parents, children, the wider community, trade unions or local authority, and there is no obligation to consult parents or the wider community in order to explain the vision or the academy’s functions. On Report in another place, the Government introduced an amendment that allows new academies to

“consult such persons as they think appropriate”,

but that concession was vaguely drafted and the Bill needs to go further.

My hon. Friend the Member for Gateshead (Ian Mearns), who is no longer in his place, said earlier today that a good school is not an island, and I absolutely agree. A good school is an institution that has a positive partnership with neighbouring schools and a constructive relationship with the community in which it operates. But the Bill does not take that into account. Instead, it ensures that the most important relationship is between the school and the Secretary of State, rather than between the school and its economic and social environment.

I am also unclear about how staff will be consulted under the Bill, and I hope that in responding the Minister will specifically answer that point. As far as I understand it, there is no obligation to consult staff about changes to the school model, but there will be huge ramifications in terms of the legal challenges to that, especially if TUPE arrangements need to be properly considered.

I have already mentioned the indecent haste of the Bill’s passage through Parliament. If some institutions are to be set up as academies or free schools as early as six weeks from now, in September, and if many schools have either finished, or might finish in the next couple of days, for the summer, is there any time logistically to consult staff and unions properly on the ramifications for staffing contracts? Article 12 of the UN convention on the rights of the child gives children the right to express views on matters affecting them, a point that was made in Committee in another place, but nothing in the Bill allows children’s views to be heard on a future that affects them.

Another fundamental question is, what impact will a new school have? Where does the Bill allow for the need to assess and challenge a new school, or for people who want to introduce one to demonstrate where it will improve education not just for its own intake, but for the surrounding area and students of adjacent schools? If an area takes on additional free schools, academies or both without appropriate consultation or consideration, we must accept that there is a strong risk of existing maintained schools becoming unviable. That arrangement will inevitably lead to an unfair, two-tier system of schooling, and this country’s education system will fragment, with all the negative social consequences that that produces.

Without my amendments and those of my right hon. and hon. Friends, the Bill will ensure that funding flows towards new, free-market schools without any assessment of capacity or need. In Committee in the other place, it was confirmed that local authorities and other stakeholders were essentially being booted out of the way to enable additional school places to be created in a completely ad hoc, free-market way. The only check on this is the Secretary of State, rather than local people with a passion for their area and schools and knowledge of local circumstances. The creation of those additional places will be funded at the expense of existing school budgets and the loss of school buildings. It will also lead to a fragmentation of education, as I have said. It will leave some pupils behind, and it does not raise standards in schools at all. I ask the Minister to respond to those concerns and to think again.

As my right hon. Friend the shadow Secretary of State said on Second Reading, which seems only a matter of hours ago—in fact, given the haste of this Bill’s passage, it was only a few hours ago—having examined the case for a new parent-promoted school in Kirklees, Professor David Woods said that it would

“have a negative impact on other schools in the area in the form of surplus places and an adverse effect on revenue and capital budgets.”