Academies Bill [Lords]

Debate between David Ward and Lord Coaker

Monday 26th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Vernon Coaker]

I make a prediction to the right hon. Gentleman and to some of the hon. Members on the Government Benches who are saying “Hear, hear”. I predict that the Government will produce amendments in the Bill that they are introducing in the autumn to clarify the situation and that hon. Members will, at some point, be writing to the Minister asking whether he could intervene in respect of particular schools in their community where it looks as though the consultation has not taken place and other schools start complaining about the schools that have been fast-tracked to academy status. As the right hon. Gentleman knows, because he has been here longer than I have, when we legislate in this House, we do so in a way that lays out the process that we expect to be followed in order for a process to happen. The process in this Bill is confused, and people do not know what it is supposed to be. He knows as well as I do that confused legislation provides the opportunity for judicial review. All I am saying is that the fact that this reference is not in the Bill is astonishing.

[Mr Ward]

I wonder whether the hon. Gentleman is as concerned as I am about the proposals on consulting parents. Unless we receive some advice to the contrary, it appears that under clause 1(6)(d) up to 49% of the pupils in a new school do not have to be

“drawn from the area in which the school is situated.”

[Vernon Coaker]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right about that. Of course what Lord Hill said in another place was that if we were to consider the grammar schools that become academies, we might find that that area is significantly broader. What that “area” meant was very difficult to define.

My hon. Friend the Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman), the former Chair of the Select Committee, drew attention to the fact that the Government are not averse to ballots because they have introduced them for local planning decisions. Of course, the Minister will know, as we heard in the statement that took place before our discussions in Committee started today, the Government are introducing ballots for locally elected police commissioners. The principle of ballots, such as that proposed by the hon. Member for Southport (Dr Pugh), is something to which the Government are not opposed.

We think that we should lay out the details that are set out in amendment 78 rather simply leaving it to people to do what is appropriate. Parents should be consulted and, as many people have said, it is essential that the pupil voice should be heard. In answer to an earlier question from a Member on the Government Benches, of course that would be done in a way that is appropriate. The amendment refers to guidance that should be given to schools on how they should consult pupils.

What are the teachers and non-teaching staff going to come back to in September? The Minister needs to answer the question about what is happening with the TUPE negotiations about the transfer of teaching and non-teaching staff for those schools that want to become academies.

Academies Bill [Lords]

Debate between David Ward and Lord Coaker

Thursday 22nd July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Vernon Coaker]

I was not trying to suggest that PFI was a panacea for all ills, and I know that it has sometimes led to problems. I was merely suggesting that it was one of the options that had allowed some local authorities to build new schools that might not have been built otherwise.

I was going to deal with the question of what will happen if a school fails, but the hon. Gentleman has made the point well enough to save me the trouble of making it myself. I entirely agree with him. As we discovered yesterday, one of the main drawbacks of the Bill is the huge amount of detail that it contains. In relation to one clause, we were told not to worry because a committee—I cannot remember what it was called—would be set up to examine all the issues that had been raised, as the Government did not know the answers yet. We as a Parliament, however, are being asked to pass the Bill.

Some of the problems with the Bill were illustrated very effectively by the comments of the hon. Member for Portsmouth South (Mr Hancock), and other Members will doubtless make similar comments later. Moreover—let me make this point again to the Schools Minister—we cannot amend it. We can table amendments, but for a number of reasons the Government do not want it to be amended.

Does the hon. Member for Bradford East (Mr Ward) wish to intervene?

[Mr David Ward (Bradford East) (LD)]

I am sorry. I was simply trying to catch Miss P’s eye.

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[Vernon Coaker]

My hon. Friend makes an extremely good point. I was going to say that what is happening in respect of the Academies Bill is a one-off, but he has pointed out that this happened in respect of the Finance Bill as well. One would hope, however, that it is not a precedent of how other Bills will be dealt with.

I have tabled amendment 70 in order to try to be helpful. The amendment does not say that no capital moneys can be paid to free schools. In fact, it says capital moneys can be paid to free schools, but before that money is paid there has to be the agreement of “local parents and children”, the “local authority” and

“any other persons deemed appropriate.”

I thought that we were all in favour of the new localism and local decision making, and the point of the amendment is to allow the local people and communities along with the local authority to determine whether the capital moneys proposed to be used to set up a free school—that will be agreed by the Secretary of State—should be spent in that way, when it might have been used for the benefit of other schools in, for example, Liverpool, Halton and Luton.

I am trying to be helpful to the Government, therefore. I am saying to the Government, “You establish the free schools—the ‘additional schools’ as the Bill calls them—but if you’re going to take capital moneys away from other schools in the community to establish the free schools, then let’s see whether the local people and the local authority agree.” Given the furore we have seen over the cuts to Building Schools for the Future, with communities throughout the country seeing their new school buildings taken away from them, I wonder what they would say when asked whether they would wish to see their new school buildings sacrificed on the altar of a school experiment that is unproven and supported by no evidence one way or the other. I know why the Government will not accept this amendment, therefore: because they would be frightened of the answer they would get from local communities, who would turn around and say, “We want capital moneys spent for the benefit of the whole community, not for the benefit of a few.”

I have some questions linked to the amendment for the Minister. How many free schools does he expect there will be? How much money does he expect to spend on each free school? What do the changes in the review of capital expenditure actually mean? Are there going to be any regulations or are we going to allow children to go on the 13th floor, let us say? I note that the head of Tesco property offices is one of the advisers to the capital review group, and we will see what happens there. Can the Minister confirm that he expects the first free schools to open in 2011? Does he expect to spend all of the £50 million? Does he expect that to be enough money to develop the 38 schools in September 2011?

While we are talking about Building Schools for the Future, may I also ask the Minister to confirm how many academies have been affected by the BSF cuts? Looking at the list, it appears that while many local authority-maintained schools have had their BSF money stopped, lots of the academies are listed as under review. Will the Minister take this opportunity to explain to us exactly what is happening in that regard?

How much does the Minister expect the free schools to cost not only over the next six months or year, but over the next five years? How much money will the Department for Education be trying to get from the Treasury in the next spending review? What evidence does he have that the moneys to be invested in free schools is a policy worth pursuing and that it is worth taking money from the vast majority of schools to fund what I regard as an educational experiment?

We look forward to hearing the Minister’s response, and the comments of other Members who may also want to contribute to this important debate. At the heart of the debate on all the amendments, including amendment 70, is the fact that there are those of us who wish to try to ensure that opportunity and excellence for all is made a reality in every single community. There is a difference between the Government and the Opposition on this. Sometimes we are characterised as wanting to pull down those who can excel. Far from it: we want all children to achieve, including those who have talents and ability. We want all children to have school buildings of which they can be proud. The amendment before us seeks to ensure that, where the Government want to divert capital moneys from one set of priorities to another, that is done on the basis of local support—the support of local parents and the local authority—and not done at the whim of the Secretary of State.

[Mr Ward]

May I say how much I, as a new boy, have enjoyed the Committee stage and how useful I have found it as a mechanism for at least asking questions and trying to clarify points? Yesterday’s proceedings were long, but very useful to me in trying to understand how this process works.

There is value in this amendment. It is always important to spend public money as wisely as we possibly can. There will be disputes about policy initiatives and priorities, but whatever the priority, we need always to get the best value for the money we spend. If that was ever important, it certainly is now. In the spirit of the Committee, I shall not go into why we are in the difficulties that we are in, but most people accept that we are in a time of great austerity where we face cuts, tax increases and spending decisions that require careful thought.

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[Vernon Coaker]

I tried to make that point at the beginning; otherwise, we would not make any progress. I said that there had been improvements to the Bill and that there would have been improvements in some of the documentation associated with academies. That does not change the fact that, when it comes down to it, the Government are not clear on what the funding arrangements will be, how they will work and the correct balance between centrally provided services and the academies.

As the Chair of the Education Committee asked, where do we draw the line and what is the balance between those issues? The Government have not given us any definition of what they mean by

“low incidence special educational needs or disabilities.”

In Committee, we have to tease out those sorts of issues from the Government, to ensure that the legislation that we pass in this Parliament is as robust and effective as it can be.

[Mr Ward]

May I introduce one other aspect? The discussion is seemingly taking place on the basis that there is an abundant supply of learning support services and professionals. That is simply not the case. In many cases, the authority has to carry out a difficult rationing role. A good example is educational psychologists, of whom there is not an abundant supply. It is worrying that that rationing process, which most local authorities treat in a fair way, may now face a situation in which schools can simply buy in precious resources to the detriment of other schools in the district.

[Vernon Coaker]

That is right. The issue is not only the quantity of support services for children with special educational needs, but their quality. There is also the issue of the effectiveness of some interventions. This big area of debate is no doubt outside the scope of what we are discussing at the moment, but the hon. Gentleman is absolutely right about the provision of quality.

Academies Bill [Lords]

Debate between David Ward and Lord Coaker

Wednesday 21st July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Vernon Coaker]

I totally agree with that.

This has been an excellent debate. May I finish by saying that I think all Members from across the House would agree that when we debate special education, not just special educational needs, and the issue of special schools, we do not pay sufficient tribute to the work of the teachers in special schools? That is the case notwithstanding our difference about whether special schools should become academies. We profoundly disagree with that approach, for some of the reasons that I have set out. It is a leap in the dark and we have no idea where it will end up. However, at least we have had the opportunity to praise special schools, to examine their work and to try to understand this issue. No doubt, the Minister will try, in her response, to allay the Committee’s fears a little more about what this will mean for special schools.

[Mr David Ward (Bradford East) (LD)]

Just to reinforce an earlier point, may I say that I closed 12 special schools as the relevant education portfolio holder and that many of those schools were an abomination? However, the process also included much more inclusion in mainstream schools and the creation of six brand-new schools, co-located, which was a great positive. That could not have been done without taking a strategic approach across the whole district and that would not have been possible if there had been independent schools within that sector.

[Vernon Coaker]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that point, which relates to the one that I have made. Where is the strategic direction coming from, given the bypassing of the local authority? He will know that the Liberal Democrats’ election manifesto showed that they understood very well that that was a real issue for them. That is why they tried to marry up the issue of the greater freedom for schools with ensuring that the strategic oversight of that was very much incorporated within the local authority framework and was not, in essence, delegated to the Secretary of State and centralised. That is a huge flaw in this model for academies.

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[Vernon Coaker]

Unusually, I do not agree with the hon. Gentleman, because a much tighter form of words in the Bill would ensure that we deliver exactly what he proposes. I believe that the Bill is so drafted because the Government think that the opposition from local authorities and local groups that always emerges to school reorganisation could hold up the progress of the Bill and the attempt to fast-track some schools to academy status. The lawyers will have said, “Put in ‘they think appropriate’, because if you start listing people and groups such as parents and community organisations, you will open yourself up, when trying to convert, to the possibility of legal challenges from parents and organisations saying they were not consulted when they should have been.” To fast-track academies is a policy objective, and I think that Ministers, their officials and their lawyers will have said, “For goodness’ sake, don’t make a list, because it will be a hostage to fortune.” Furthermore, I cannot understand why clause 5(3) includes the phrase

“or after an Academy order”.

[Mr Ward]

The way around that would have been to specify certain obvious consultees and then to add the words “plus others deemed appropriate”.

[Vernon Coaker]

I have tabled an amendment to that effect, as the hon. Gentleman will no doubt have noticed. Other than parents, local authorities are the key group that should be defined, but of course they have been missed out as well.