Academies Bill [Lords]

Debate between Lord Coaker and John Pugh

Monday 19th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Dr John Pugh (Southport) (LD)]

Nobody in the Chamber has ever argued that good government benefits by legislating in a hurry—nobody sane at any rate—and nobody in education has ever believed that the best time to consult schools and parents is during the school holidays, so the puzzle is this: why is the Secretary of State making us stay in and, with some haste, pass this legislation, when pressing matters such as reviews of discipline, special needs and so on need to be undertaken? Why this sudden and seemingly unjustified imposition, when there appear, on the face of it, to be more pressing things to do?

The Secretary of State is, I believe, extraordinarily well intentioned, dedicated, polite and considerate, and he is keener to convince than to coerce, but on this issue he seems to be possessed by a messianic enthusiasm characteristic of Tony Blair—in fact, he admitted as much in the debate—who, let it be said, never let practical problems cloud pleasing prospects. I find it perfectly understandable that the new Secretary of State, not content with simply running his Department well, wants to make his mark. The way that is customarily done is by introducing legislation—legislating for change. The easiest thing that a Schools Minister can do is change the governance of schools. It is what Education Ministers most commonly do—although not necessarily what they do best—so we have had comprehensives, direct grant schools, city technology colleges, grant-maintained schools, specialist schools and academies. There are many variations.

Ministers argue at every twist and turn that each latest new governance proposal will eradicate bad schools, bad teaching and poor pupil performance. If only it were that easy. Addiction to academies is simply the latest manifestation of this tendency. The Blair/Adonis academies demonstrated the well-known truth that if a school has a fresh start, plenty of money, new staff and a lovely building, it will produce at least a temporary fillip in results. What those academies did not demonstrate —as hon. Members must know—is that academy governance and its freedoms made any difference whatever.

I recommend that Members study carefully the National Audit Office report on academies. It showed conclusively that academies in deprived areas produced no better results than the previous excellence in cities programme, and at much greater cost. I really do instruct Members to get hold of that report, read it carefully and see that what made the difference was the funding, not the governance. Tellingly too, that report leaves out the effect on neighbouring schools. It does not even take that into consideration as a problem.

The Bill suggests that simply calling schools academies without the dosh will work some special magic. I am personally intrigued by this relabelling exercise. There may be a day when simply calling an institution a “school” might be some sort of insult or an indication of failure. I do not know whether other hon. Members have read Evelyn Waugh’s “Decline and Fall” but in it the hapless Paul Pennyfeather seeks a teaching job through an agency having been expelled from Oxford. He is told by the man at the agency:

“We class schools…into…Leading School, First-rate School, Good School and School. Frankly…School is pretty bad”.

Interestingly enough, Waugh’s unfortunate character Paul Pennyfeather was expelled from Oxford for indecency, having been de-bagged by drunken members of what Waugh calls the Bollinger Club. There is a slight resonance in that.

There is no particularly persuasive evidence that a plethora of independent academies produces better outcomes than a network of schools organised by a good local authority. Studies of parallel arrangements in Sweden and the USA have been similarly inconclusive. They are not the ringing endorsement that the Secretary of State described, and those who are well informed know that only too well.

[Vernon Coaker]

Does the hon. Gentleman find it interesting that in the debates that have taken place so far on the Academies Bill there has been little reference to the evidence pointing to the opposite conclusion to that arrived at by Government on free schools or charter schools? Even more remarkably, there has been little reference to the equality impact assessment published alongside this Bill, which demonstrates some serious concerns about achievements in academies with respect to special needs pupils, girls and ethnic minorities. I am not against academies, but I would have thought that those conclusions would suggest to a Government who were not acting with such haste that they should proceed with some caution.

[Dr Pugh]

The shadow Minister has the advantage of me. I do know that there are a number of studies of charter schools in the United States, and that some are for and some against. The meta-analysis is inconclusive. It does not show that charter schools necessarily produce the wholesale educational improvement that the Secretary of State mentioned in his contribution.

There is no evidence that schools with all their current freedoms—and the ordinary council school has much more freedom than it ever used to have—feel oppressed rather than supported by local authorities. However, as has been said several times today, there is ample evidence that they are sick to death of the bureaucratic overload imposed by the Department and Ministers. It is downright shoddy and unfair to suggest that schools can be released from the bullying and bossiness of central Government only if they break their relationship with the local authority. It is dishonest to suggest that academy status is about addressing underperformance, when it is those who overperform who are to be fast-tracked and those in the leafy suburbs who are most likely to apply.