Great Western Line: Electrification

Debate between Charlotte Leslie and James Gray

Tuesday 22nd November 2016 Westminster Hall

[Charlotte Leslie (Bristol North West) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered electrification of the Great Western line.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. This is a debate that I never wanted to have to bring to the House and I am sure that many other Members felt the same. In doing so, I acknowledge that the Minister—the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard)—is relatively new to his post and that many of the problems I am highlighting will be ones that he has inherited. I also acknowledge that he has been and remains a formidable constituency MP, as well as now being a great Minister, so I hope that he will forgive many of us for expressing passionately the views and interests of our constituents. That goes to the heart of why I called for this debate, because I am sure that there are those somewhere who will say, “What is an MP for Bristol North West doing having this debate?” Neither Bristol Parkway nor Bristol Temple Meads are in my constituency, so some will say, “Well, she’s not affected by this.” However, anyone who says that an MP such as me is not affected by this issue misunderstands fundamentally the nature of transport and the nature of our railways in particular.

Our railways are not simply stretches of iron rail in the location where they are constituted; they are the circulation system, if you will, of our regions, our communities and indeed our entire nation. If something happens to one part of that circulation system, it has wide-reaching effects and impacts on the body as a whole.

I applied for this debate because of deep concern about the recent Government announcement of the deferral of electrification, which yet again appears to leave the south-west region trailing behind other parts of the country in terms of transport infrastructure investment.

[Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)]

I am most grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way. I am sorry to interrupt her so very early in her speech. I know that most of the speeches in the Chamber this afternoon will be about the problems and the deferral of electrification. However, would it not be gracious to say that 10 years ago there was no prospect whatever of electrification anywhere to the west of London? We should be glad that this Conservative Government have delivered electrification as far as Chippenham—in my constituency, or just outside it—and that we have quite a few things to be grateful for, albeit that we also have a few problems.

[Charlotte Leslie]

It is always a profound joy to give way to my hon. Friend. If he had waited for a small amount of time before intervening, I would have come to that point. However, since he has made that case, I can skip over some of my speech, because it is a very valid point. We do not want to let the best become the enemy of the good and I want to acknowledge where we are.

Local Education Partnerships

Debate between Charlotte Leslie and James Gray

Wednesday 21st July 2010 Westminster Hall

[Charlotte Leslie (Bristol North West) (Con)]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. This is my first Westminster Hall debate, so if I mess up the protocol—

[Mr James Gray (in the Chair)]

You addressed me as Mr Speaker, which is flattering, but incorrect. I am not yet the Speaker. Mr Gray is perfectly sufficient.

[Charlotte Leslie]

Thank you, Mr Gray. That was my first mess-up.

The focus in recent weeks has been on the Building Schools for the Future programme, but I wanted to bring this debate to Westminster Hall because the mechanisms underlying that programme—local education partnerships—have been overlooked. They are public-private partnerships between local authorities and a private sector partner selected to carry out contracting for the local authority. I have initiated this debate because I want to talk about the inefficiencies of local education partnerships and a certain lack of democratic accountability.

On value for money, I have previously worked with academy sponsors and a number have come to me in little less than despair about the measures and mechanisms that they have to go through with local education partnerships, to the extent that one even told me that the introduction of the partnership would be enough to put them off sponsoring another academy. I shall give a few details of an academy sponsor who sponsored an academy before the local education partnership came into effect, and then did so again after that, to give the Minister the benefit of experiences that that academy sponsor related to me about the way the partnership process works.

I shall also speak about the democratic accountability of local education partnerships. I shall refer, for illustration only, to a specific case in my constituency: the rebuild of Elmlea infants school, which badly needs a rebuild and has a very hard-working head teacher. That rebuild will not be done under the Building Schools for the Future programme.

First, on the academy sponsor and its concerns about efficiencies, the sponsor told me that the local education partnership in Bristol—the contractor partner was Skanska—was 90% owned by Skanska as contractor and 10% owned by the local authority. Obviously, that raises questions. The interests not of the school but of Skanska were put first, because of its stake in the LEP. Moreover, the local authority was a 10% shareholder, so it was compromised because the higher the building costs for Skanska, the higher the fees to the LEP. It was apparent that the school’s interests were not represented in that dynamic.

My second concern is about responsibilities. A partnership may function very well, but there may be a lack of accountability as to who takes responsibility for what. That problem has been raised frequently in connection with academy projects. In a local education partnership academy project, the school that is converting to an academy is not the client; the local authority is the client. In the case that I am referring to—it may be replicated because of the structural nature of LEPs—the council is reluctant to accept responsibility for the contract, because the school that it is looking after will no longer be its school. There is an imbalance in responsibility for the LEP contract and responsibility for the school afterwards. During discussions on the rebuild and the education to be provided in the new academy, the school was unable to speak directly to the architect dealing with the build but had to go through the contractor, Skanska, which did not necessarily have the expertise that the school had in providing buildings fit for educational purpose.

On costs, the school, which was being sponsored by sponsors who had sponsored other academies, was forced to take on the LEP procurement process rather than open tender. That caused much concern and some frustration, because the sponsor had managed to bring in an academy on time and under budget—the Minister will know that that is unusual for academy procurement and set-up. The sponsors had proved to be extremely efficient and had found extremely efficient partners, and they wanted to replicate that best practice, but were unable to do so because of the rigidity of the local education partnership. They also reported that Skanska had an overhead and profit margin of 8% plus, compared with the market rate of 4%. The sponsor estimated that that deprived the school of £500,000 of new build for that element alone.

On legal fees, because of the nature of the local educational partnership, there were three sets of solicitors. There were no challenges to the legal costs, which were substantial and, I would suggest, in a number of cases arose from replication of a task.

Those are illustrations of a wider problem that I am sure is replicated up and down the country. In another case, a school was forced to take the LEP ICT option, even though it already had its own ICT equipment that it could run itself, and which was fully functioning and used to great effect. That equipment was not compatible with the LEP version of ICT equipment required, so it was replaced at great cost, with complex contracts having to be negotiated. New ICT equipment had to be bought in at the taxpayer’s expense, and the school’s existing, perfectly functional ICT equipment became redundant because of the rigidity of the procurement process.

I could go on and on—I have a long list of inefficiencies, but I know that the Minister has better things to do, so I will not do that. Those examples of waste were provided to me by just one academy sponsor, which came to me with its concerns, but they are an indication of the kind of waste that is occurring under local educational partnerships. In this climate of economic austerity, I suggest that such waste should be looked at carefully.

My second concern is slightly less reported and has to do with democratic accountability and transparency. To illustrate my point, I will refer to the rebuild of Elmlea infants school in my constituency. The infants school shares a site with Elmlea junior school. Both schools have playgrounds and Elmlea junior school has a large playing field, which is an excellent facility for the community and is used to fulfil the curriculum requirements of both the infants and the junior school. The infants school is in urgent need of a rebuild—it has classrooms with no windows. The head teacher works hard for her children and the school is successful despite its substandard facilities.

The local educational partnership was responsible for drawing up a projected rebuild of Elmlea infants school. All along the line, the LEP process has derailed, been postponed and caused confusion among almost all the stakeholders—the local authority, head teachers in the schools and, most particularly, parents and the public. In January 2009, a feasibility study presented options 1, 2 and 3 for a rebuild of Elmlea infants school—this will get technical, but it illustrates the point. Options 1 and 2 were based on rebuilding on the existing site, and option 3 was based on rebuilding on the junior school’s playing field.

Throughout the process, it seemed that there was an LEP bias towards option 3. Option 2 was presented as the favoured option in January 2009, but rather undemocratically and quickly—it is difficult to get to the bottom of why this happened—option 3 was suddenly presented as the preferred option. All sorts of questions were raised about why that happened. Questions were asked by parents and by myself at public meetings, because incomparable costs had been presented in an attempt to move public opinion and the opinion of those in the local authority in favour of option 3—the rebuild on the playing field. The key question is why the LEP was able to provide incomparable costs. I have asked for breakdowns of the costs for the individual options so that the process can be conducted in a transparent manner and value for money can be ascertained; but to date, I have not received those breakdowns, so it is difficult to see how the money is being spent.

In conjunction with the knowledge that, in the academies process, 90% of the LEP was owned by Skanska, it has been asked whether Skanska’s interests are driving the school rebuild, or whether the rebuild is being driven by the interests of the school, parents and education. In my constituency, it has become a massive issue. The lack of transparency has delayed the process because people are seeking democratic accountability and answers. The school is worried that the rebuild it needs so much will be jeopardised because the LEP process has been so long-winded and has evaded so many questions that need answering.

I could go on and on about the failings and the questions that hang over the local educational partnership, but I will mention just a few. The preferred option for rebuild presented to the elected member for education on the council was changed at the last minute, with no debate or scrutiny. That put people on the council in a difficult position. The local educational partnership refers to independent partners, such as KEY Educational Associates, as independent in their scrutiny, whereas in fact at least one member of that independent body is employed by Skanska, so there is a question about that independence. More generally, democratic accountability has been poor.

In conclusion, I ask the Minister what his views are—if he has formed any—on the role of local educational partnerships, given that the Building Schools for the Future programme has been reviewed. Will he look closely at the value for money and the democratic accountability and efficiency represented by local educational partnerships, over which I have grave concerns?