Academies Bill [Lords]

Debate between Lord Coaker and Edward Timpson

Thursday 22nd July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Vernon Coaker]

I thank the Minister for that. We will all wait to see what is said in the wind-up, because we are all motivated by a desire to see how we can make a brave amendment in the Lords a reality. We must not create something that is extremely difficult for ourselves. For too long, many of us, from across the country, have seen special educational needs not met, including those of people with profound difficulties. If we are making provision in respect of low incidence needs, we need to address how we ensure that we meet them.

[Mr Edward Timpson (Crewe and Nantwich) (Con)]

We seem to be having an outbreak of cordial co-operation in the Committee. Paragraph 8A is an improvement on where we were at the beginning of the Bill’s proceedings, and it deals with low incidence SEN and disabilities. Has the hon. Gentleman considered whether it ought also to include looked-after children, to ensure that the provision of services for them in any academy means that they are getting the expenditure and support that they need?

[Vernon Coaker]

That is an extremely interesting and good point. As I say, the problem is that there are a number of points like that. That one would be worth testing with an amendment to see where it is catered for in the Bill or, if the Bill does not cater for it, where it is catered for in any document relating to the Bill. For example, I think I am right in saying that the new model funding agreement does not contain a requirement for there to be a teacher responsible for children in care, whereas the old funding agreement did contain one. If I have got that wrong, I will correct it. All sorts of little changes sometimes take place in the documents, letters and guidance that go along with such Bills. The changes are sometimes not debated to the extent that they need to be and they then turn out to be crucial. Even Ministers get to the point where they try to do something and are then told, “You can’t do that because section (c) on page 48 of the guidance that you passed says you cannot.” They find that a little change that they had not properly noticed, which may have been implemented with good intent, has unintended consequences.

The hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mr Timpson) was right to make the point that he did. One of the organisations that I shall refer to in a minute has made representations to us about how we ensure that the needs of children in care and of children with other associated needs are met within the new academy model arrangements that the Bill proposes. All sorts of questions like this arise, particularly if we strip out, as the Bill does in essence, the role of the local authority and devolve the funding to individual school. One unanswered question goes to the heart of the Bill: what is the co-ordinating mechanism at a local level to try to ensure that some of these things happen? That is not in place, and that is a real problem.

Academies Bill [Lords]

Debate between Lord Coaker and Edward Timpson

Wednesday 21st July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Vernon Coaker]

No, I am not embarrassed at all; I am afraid that the hon. Gentleman will have to put up with me for the time being.

This is an important debate, but it is also the quality of debate that is important. Over the next few days—today, tomorrow and Monday—the quality of the debate from across the Committee will lead to a Bill that we will oppose, but which, being a good Opposition, we will try to improve, notwithstanding the fact that we do not agree with it.

It is important to say at the beginning that, whether we are talking about the current amendment—amendment 28, which concerns special schools—or any other amendment, at the heart of this debate is the fact that we have a different view of academies and academy education from that which is presented in the Bill. This Bill inverts the way in which the previous Government pursued the academy programme. We established academies in areas of poor educational performance and areas of social disadvantage. The Bill turns that on its head, allowing outstanding schools to fast-track to academy status and allowing primary schools for the first time to become academies, a provision that is the subject of a subsequent amendment, and also allowing special schools to become academies—the subject of amendment 28. Those are all things that we think could damage the provision of education, particularly with respect to special education needs in an area.

[Mr Edward Timpson (Crewe and Nantwich) (Con)]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree with the recommendation in the previous Parliament of the Select Committee on Children, Schools and Families, as it then was, that the freedoms available to academies under his Government should have been available to all schools? Does he have any objection to all schools having such freedoms?

[Vernon Coaker]

Of course we want freedoms extended to different schools where appropriate. However, if the hon. Gentleman reads the Children, Schools and Families Committee report, he will see that it talked about allowing the expansion of those freedoms within a managed context, not what is being proposed now, which is that these freedoms be extended to schools without any check on them or on how they use those freedoms. The proposals on the local authority role have caused huge disquiet across the country, and will have caused huge disquiet among the hon. Gentleman’s Conservative and Liberal colleagues. That is why I am pointing out the difference.

The Chair of the Select Committee is no longer in his place, but it would be interesting to know whether his Committee would have reached the same conclusion about the extension of freedoms to all schools if it had known that it would happen in a context in which the Secretary of State—either through a funding agreement or a direct grant—determined whether a school was operating effectively and conducting itself in an appropriate way. This applies to special schools, as provided for in the amendment, and to any other schools. I believe that the different context is crucial for understanding the conclusions that the Select Committee came to about how the academies programme was developing under the last Government in comparison with this Government’s programme. In the light of that difference, the Select Committee might well have reached different conclusions.