Education Bill

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Wednesday 14th September 2011 Grand Committee

[Baroness Hughes of Stretford]

I shall speak also to Amendments 126ZZB and 126ZBA to Clause 55, and to Amendments 126ZD and 126ZE to Clause 58. Elements in those clauses and these amendments relate to the requirements on the consultation that must take place before a maintained school can convert to an academy. The proposals in the Bill are worded such that the governing body itself can decide who is consulted and when that consultation takes place. That timing can include consultation taking place not only before but after an order is applied for or is made. That seems to us to be contrary to the spirit of any consultation, in which, minimally, there ought to be legitimate parameters around who should be consulted and when the appropriate timing is. Most reasonable people would say that consultation should take place before a decision is made.

These amendments therefore seek to say, first, that there should be some minimal requirements on who is consulted—that the governing body cannot have a completely unfettered right to decide whether anybody, or nobody, will be consulted.

Secondly, the consultation should take place in time to inform decision-making. If it can take place after a decision has been made, if only in principle, that begs the question of what purpose it serves. As to consultation that can take place after an order is made, let alone an application for an order for a school to become an academy, it seems to suggest that the Secretary of State will make a decision in favour of an application whatever the consultation might say. That does not do the Government much good and certainly does not suggest that they regard consultation as a meaningful process.

There are important issues of principle here. Before making this speech, I thought of all the consultations that Governments and many other organisations are required to have with the public before they put forward proposals or change legislation. All the consultations have a set of minimum requirements on the people consulting as to what should be the scope and the best timing for the consultations. I cannot for the life of me think that it is reasonable, again on the altar of freedom for schools, to tear up the reasonable notion that there should be a definition in statute of the scope and timing of this consultation. That is a reasonable thing for the law to say and therefore I hope that noble Lords will support the amendments.

[Baroness Brinton]

I will speak to Amendments 126ZB and 126ZC. Before I do, I will say that I support the comments about consultation made by the noble Baroness, Lady Hughes. Post-event consultation is not consultation. In my experience, and I am sure in that of many noble Lords present, it is infuriating to communities when that happens, because they realise that they are being given information rather than a chance to influence what is happening.

The intention of the two amendments that I am speaking to is simple and sits at the heart of the coalition agreement's stated desire to affirm and support localism. I turn first to Amendment 126ZB. The current consultation on intervention for conversion to an academy is the opposite of true localism. As expressed in Clause 55(3), the consultation is done either by the proposed academy—and we know from experience that many academies do not want to consult widely—or by the Secretary of State. How on earth the Secretary of State or his hard-pressed civil servants can seriously manage such consultations, I do not know. Even more worrying is the fact that this is exactly the role that should be given to the independent but local elected authority, which has the strategic responsibility for economic and social well-being in its area and must ensure the appropriate provision for schools and the learning of education and skills.

Amendment 126ZC follows logically when a new school is being considered for academy status. At present, the Bill leaves everything to the Secretary of State, who will have to consult locally in order to take a view on what is needed. Therefore, it seems sensible that,

“the local authority must confirm whether the school is required”,

taking account of other school provision in the area. We should see new schools only in areas where there is a need. In these straitened times, setting up new schools where there is a surplus of school places is not the most sensible thing to do. Finally, I will just say that we are concerned that this undoes some very sensible work done with the Academies Act before Christmas, and we hope that the Minister will reconsider the Government’s position.

[Baroness Walmsley]

My Lords, I support what my noble friend said. Clause 55(3)(b) states that one of the people who is allowed to carry out the consultation, apart from a school's governing body referred to in Clause 55(3)(a), is the person with whom the Secretary of State proposes to enter into academy arrangements. That does not seem terrible neutral to me. Guess what the result will be. To the question, “Do we want a new academy?”, I think the answer will be, “Yes, we do”. It seems inconceivable that any consultation carried out by the body that is straining at the leash to open this academy is going to come up with the answer, “No, we don’t want it”. So it is not very neutral.