Academies Bill [Lords]
Debate between Lord Barwell and Shabana Mahmood(14 years, 4 months ago)
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Gavin Barwell
The hon. Lady is repeating the line that the shadow Secretary of State started with, which is that the Bill is a perversion of Labour’s academy policy. However, the then Prime Minister Tony Blair said on 24 October 2005:
“We want every school to be able quickly and easily to become a self-governing independent…school.”
How is that inconsistent with the Bill?
Shabana Mahmood
Tony Blair is no longer the leader of my party, and I was elected in May 2010. Although I agree with much of what he did when he was Prime Minister and leader of our great party, I do not agree with all of what he said and did. That was not the point that I was making, however, which was about the Bill and the fact that it focuses on pre-approving outstanding schools. That gives away what it is all about—creating a two-tier system.
Shabana Mahmood
I wish to make some progress.
In any case, the fact that so many schools are currently outstanding shows that excellence is alive and well in the maintained system and that there is no need to move towards the free schools model.
One of the freedoms that the Bill promises new academies and free schools is freedom from local authority control. I have to ask where is the evidence that a system that is entirely independent, with schools free to do as they please, is more effective than what we have at the moment. Under Labour, academies were successful because disadvantaged schools were given the opportunity for a fresh start and a clear focus, with a dedicated commitment to making them better. In many ways they were more Government-controlled, rather than being free.
Furthermore, I thought that the new politics was all about engaging with the public and including them in the decisions that are made, especially at local level. Well, many people see education as one of their major public services, and they would expect to be able to monitor, control and hold to account that service through their elected local authority. To break that link through the apparatus of the state is profoundly undemocratic and should be rejected.
New academies and free schools are also promised freedom from the national curriculum. I agree entirely with the right hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr Laws), who stated on “Newsnight” on 10 March this year that that was one of the “dottiest” aspects of Tory education policy. If only such frankness about it were to be found now on his party’s Benches. On the same programme, the present Secretary of State said about the national curriculum:
“I think it is important that we have a piece of infrastructure in the public realm which people can admire and which they can use as a benchmark but which we can depart from where appropriate”.
That shows a fundamental misunderstanding. The national curriculum determines what our children learn to equip them—each and every one, bar none—to make their way in the world, especially the world of work. It is about passing on knowledge from one generation to another, which is an important part of the make-up of our society. To allow some schools to opt out and determine what our kids learn according to the whims of a particular head teacher or governing body is, indeed, dotty.