Schools White Paper

Clive Efford Excerpts

Wednesday 13th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[Lucy Powell]

I will make some progress, because a lot of people want to speak. I will take interventions shortly.

Let us look at each of the Government’s arguments in turn. First, the Government say that this is about school improvement. Let us look at the evidence. The vast majority of schools that will be affected by the policy will be primary schools, of which more than 17% are already academies. Of those that are not, more than 80% are already rated good or outstanding. In secondary, where more than two thirds of schools are already academies, there are more failing academies than non-academies. In places such as Doncaster, Bexley and north-east Lincolnshire, where school improvement remains a real concern, all the secondary schools are already academies.

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful case. Would she care to reflect on performance in Greenwich, which has become one of the highest-performing education authorities in the country without the enforced academisation of a single primary school, and in which only three secondary schools have become academies? That performance has been achieved without enforced academisation. Parents in our borough are concerned about why they have been removed from the process and will not be consulted about changes to their schools.

[Lucy Powell]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point.