Academy Status

Baroness Laing of Elderslie Excerpts

Thursday 31st October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Bill Esterson]

I will not ask the Minister about qualified teachers today—we have done that a lot recently. On school improvement and whether academies do better than the state-maintained sector, does he accept that all the evidence—not just that from the Academies Commission —is inconclusive when comparing improvement in like-for-like schools?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

Order. The hon. Gentleman must stick carefully to the narrow terms of the debate. I am sure the Minister will bear that in mind.

[Mr Laws]

I shall indeed, Madam Deputy Speaker, although I will say a word about some of the wider issues in a moment.

In all cases, a school can become an academy only after statutory consultation has taken place. That gives parents, governors and the local community the opportunity to put forward their views. These representations are always considered as part of the decision-making process.

On the point raised by the hon. Gentleman, academy status has made a big improvement in transforming underperforming schools, giving them the freedom to innovate by creating the right conditions for success. In recent years, the results of sponsored academies have gone up faster than those of other state-funded schools, and have turned around some of our worst schools. Their performance has continued to improve this year; in fact, the longer they are open, the better on average they do.

I make it clear that sponsored academies remain state schools funded by the state. All academies are run by non-profit-making charitable trusts, which sign funding agreements with the Secretary of State. They are also required by their funding agreements to follow the law and guidance on admissions, special educational needs and exclusions, as though they were maintained schools.

I hope I have made it clear today that our absolute priority is to see sustainable improvement in schools that have been underperforming for many years. Where underperformance is not being tackled effectively, the Secretary of State has the power to intervene to help ensure that standards are raised quickly, and these powers include replacing current governors with interim executive members, although this power has been used only sparingly.

I would like to reiterate my thanks to the hon. Member for Leyton and Wanstead for securing this debate, and I thank him and the hon. Member for Ilford North for their role in raising this issue. Many schools across the country are choosing to become academies, and we will continue to work with underperforming schools and their local authorities to transform the life chances of some of the most disadvantaged children in the country. I will write to the hon. Member for Leyton and Wanstead to address his detailed points.

Finally, along with all hon. Members I would like to wish Snaresbrook primary school, its leadership, teachers and pupils the very best for the future.

Question put and agreed to.

Qualified Teachers

Baroness Laing of Elderslie Excerpts

Wednesday 30th October 2013 Commons Chamber

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

This debate is about freedoms, and the wider context is that the Deputy Prime Minister has referred to teachers other than qualified teachers. The hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr Stuart), the Chair of the Education Committee, who has left the Chamber, spoke of the need for evidence. The Committee has received no evidence in support of free schools or academies—it does not exist, although experts have been to see the Committee. That greater freedoms necessarily lead to improved performance is an ideological belief, but the evidence does not currently exist.

The Secretary of State is relaxed about the freedom to have unqualified teachers in classrooms, but other freedoms that have been extended to free schools and academies could have much more serious consequences. An internal audit investigation team at the Kings science academy has shown how far that can go. The school is free to have unqualified teachers, but it is also free to appoint a principal with no real management or leadership experience, let alone qualifications. It is free to have unqualified teachers, but it is also free to access £460,000 to pay for temporary accommodation in a former independent school, of which the principal’s father was a trustee. No wonder the school is happy about employing non-qualified teachers. The principal was also free to employ his mother, his sister and his father. I do not know whether they teach, but they were employed without any interviews or applications being required.

Yes we should trust head teachers, but should we trust them to that extent? Should we trust them to take on suppliers and contractors with no contracts and no procurement process, to fabricate—that is a euphemism—and make out false invoices? Should they be free to do that? Should they be free to access £10 million of Government funding to refurbish a derelict mill owned by the vice-chairman of the Conservative party? It costs about £5 a square foot for warehousing in a mill in Bradford, but that property company, owned by the vice-chairman of the Tory party, is getting £300,000 a year for leasing that building for 20 years, after which the building will revert to the property company. Should head teachers be free to defraud the Department for Education and HMRC by false claims about pupil numbers, about rent paid to a property company owned—surprise, surprise—by the vice-chairman of the Conservative party, and about tax payments?

The issue is the culture that is in place. That principal was in a situation in which the normal rules do not apply. We are told that there are mechanisms and checks in place to deal with such problems, but when the chaotic and dysfunctional governance arrangements were highlighted, guess who was responsible for dealing with disciplinary action? We are told in a press release from the Department:

“Any necessary disciplinary action is a matter for the school.”

I do not trust it to deal with the problems and sort them out.

The main problem with this whole policy—I opposed academies under Labour and I oppose academies and free schools under this lot—is that the criteria for success are not about raising educational attainment. The criterion for the success of this policy is how many academies and free schools there are. It is claimed that it is a success because there are so many. So when an application is made, the due diligence that we would expect, and that we have a right to insist upon in terms of public accountability, flies out of the window.

The Deputy Prime Minister is right: children have a right to be taught by a qualified teacher. But there are other rights. As taxpayers, we have a right to robust and rigorous due diligence before these schools are opened. This is not about freedom; it is about the privilege of being exempt from public accountability—these are freedoms too far.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

On the understanding that he will speak for two minutes, I call Chris Williamson.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Laws]

I have only a minute left.

The vast majority of state-funded schools in this country still require qualified teacher status. I have no doubt that there are people on the Conservative Benches who would see that the logic of their policy means that this should be applied to all state-funded schools. They accept that there have to be compromises; they understand that and they do not have difficulty with it. What we have found today is that the parties in coalition accept their responsibilities and that the Labour party is completely incoherent, hiding behind this matter to cover up the embarrassment of its own lack of policies. We will not be blown off course. We will continue to deliver a better education system. We will work together closely in Government as we have since May 2010, and we will go on delivering the reformed and improved education system for which all of us on the Opposition Benches have been working since that date.

Question put.

The House proceeded to a Division.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

I ask the Serjeant at Arms to investigate the delay in the No Lobby.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I understand that during the Division, no Liberal Democrat Members of Parliament voted against the motion—not even the Minister for Schools, who spoke from the Dispatch Box against it. Is that in breach of the “voice and vote” provisions of “Erskine May”?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

As the hon. Gentleman is aware, the way in which individual Members decide to use their right to vote is not a matter for the Chair.

I now have to announce the result of the deferred Division on the motion relating to the designation of the UK Green Investment Bank. The Ayes were 290 and the Noes were 22, so the Question was agreed to.

[The Division list is published at the end of today’s debates.]

Rhiya Malin

Baroness Laing of Elderslie Excerpts

Thursday 1st November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Eleanor Laing (Epping Forest) (Con)]

I am bringing before the House the matter of the death of little Rhiya Malin, who was two-and-a-half years old when she died at Eton Manor nursery in Chigwell in my constituency. I do so because it is our duty here in Parliament to hold public bodies to account. The people of this country rely on Government and Government agencies to protect them from wrongdoing. Sadly, however, we sometimes discover instances in which the attitude of a Government Department or agency is based on a box-ticking, passing the buck and “it’s in the rules, so it’s okay” attitude. Sometimes the real effect on real people is passed by—

--- Later in debate ---

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—(Mark Lancaster.)

[Mrs Laing]

I had not realised that we were ahead of time. We will have an extra minute, so the Minister will be delighted that she will be able to give an even longer explanation of what went on in the case under discussion.

As I was saying, sometimes the effect on real people, who rely on Government Departments and agencies, is passed by, forgotten or ignored. Sadly, that is true in this case.

Before I begin the main part of what I have to say, I welcome the new Minister to her position. I appreciate that she has played no part whatsoever in and has had no personal responsibility for the matter until now, but some of her predecessors, of whom I am critical, should bear some responsibility for passing the buck and an over-reliance on bureaucratic rules. My intention in bringing the matter to the House’s attention is to ensure that, in future, such matters will be dealt with in a better way and have a more satisfactory outcome.

This is a very sad case. Five years ago, on 8 November 2007, Rhiya Malin, a little girl aged two, died while in the care of Eton Manor day nursery in Chigwell in my constituency. The nursery is still operating. Some of the people who had care of—or, it could be argued, did not have care of—the little girl at the time she died are still working there. The facts speak for themselves. Someone put a child aged two and a half in a nursery. We are not talking about a child aged seven or eight, who can run about and do things that lead to accidents, such as climb trees, go up on roofs or fall off bicycles. We are talking about a two-year-old baby who should have been supervised. She was unaccounted for for 25 minutes, so something went wrong. The facts speak for themselves. That little girl should not have died while in the care of that nursery.

I fully appreciate that it is not the duty of Parliament to hold individuals to account and that some proceedings relating to this matter are still sub judice. I also appreciate that neither the Minister nor anyone else can comment on those issues in public, and I will not do so either, because that would be wrong. The question whether a particular individual was or was not responsible for the apparent negligence that led to Rhiya Malin’s death is a matter for the courts, not us, but the nursery has accepted responsibility for the health and safety failings and it is still trading. The people who failed to find that little dying girl for 25 minutes that day are still there.

I am not interested in dealing with a criminal standard of proof, and I am not interested in retribution—as I said, those are matters for the courts. I just want to ensure that we do all we can to hold public bodies to account and ensure that what happened at Eton Manor nursery that day does not happen again, ever, to any other little child who has been put in the care of people who have been presumed to be responsible but have acted irresponsibly.

One aspect of the case that really upsets me is that Ofsted has treated it as though a child had broken a leg or an arm and it were required to ensure that it did not admit liability for fear of having to spend public money on compensation to the parents of the injured child. That has been its attitude throughout.

For me to receive a letter from one of the Minister’s predecessors suggesting that I could hold Ofsted to account by going to a Select Committee or the ombudsman was an utter insult to a family who are bereaved and a little child who lost her life. There has been a box-ticking mentality of passing the buck. The mentality has been, “We have done everything we were meant to do,” and “It says here that this is what Ofsted should do, so that is what it did—no more, no less—so it is okay. Go away, Member of Parliament. What are you getting so upset about?”

I am getting upset because there were many complaints about that nursery before little Rhiya died. I have evidence of complaints or investigations in September 2004, April 2005, June 2005, September 2005 and September 2007. There may have been many more, but those are the ones of which I am aware. Yet nothing was done. Ofsted appears to have gone in and said, “Well, this could be improved on and that was wrong”, or “This was right, but that could be done better”, and nothing happened. There was probably not a good enough ratio of carers to little children, but it is not for me to make that judgment. It is for Ofsted to make it, and to carry through the job that is assigned to it by ensuring that a nursery—a place where little children are supposed to be looked after—is properly run and properly regulated.

I have delayed and delayed bringing the matter to the House, because we were awaiting the inquest, a judicial review result and the result of health and safety hearings, but it gets to the point where enough is enough. Five years have now passed, and in bringing the matter to the notice of the House and the Minister in public today, I think what I would say to myself if, five years after a tragic incident such as this, a similar incident were to occur in that nursery or some other nursery that could have been prevented if steps had been taken and lessons learned from the death of Rhiya Malin. After five years, I perceive that nothing has changed in that nursery. That is why I have brought the matter before the House. I appreciate that the Minister may be restricted in what she can say because parts of the case are still sub judice, but I do not mind because at least we are airing the matter in public.

One of the most concerning issues is re-registration. Soon after little Rhiya died, the nursery in question was re-registered under a different company name. We all know about the ownership of companies and the corporate veil and so on, but it looks as if deliberate steps were taken to re-register the nursery under a different name so that the record was wiped clean, and so that prospective parents researching whether it was a suitable company and place to put their small children would not have been able to find out that a child died. That change in company might have been a coincidence, and the name might have been changed for some other business, financial or tax reason, but it looks very much as if re-registration occurred because the company wished to conceal its responsibility—or possible responsibility—for what happened when little Rhiya died.

In September 2008 a director of Casterbridge Care and Education Ltd applied to register the five nurseries in that company with another company, Casterbridge Nurseries Ltd., of which they were also a director. Ofsted should have inspected Eton Manor in 2008, but because the company had re-registered, that did not happen.

An e-mail from someone at Ofsted states:

“I have an open CIE case…and the Midlands have an open CIE case…on two provisions within Casterbridge nurseries chain…Both provisions have recently been re-registered as the provider has changed its name from Casterbridge Care and Education Ltd to Casterbridge Ltd. The new certificates giving the new registration numbers have already been dispatched to the provider. The provider’s history with Companies House shows numerous changes of names over the last 5 years and a high number of CIE cases. Is it possible for us to transfer these cases which are logged against the old registrations to the new one? Or are we now in a position where we are forced to accept the provider’s resignation…which would effectively mean that the CIE cases trail is lost and the cases that are now live are simply closed?”

I know the Minister will say that the system has changed since 2008. One of her predecessors wrote to me saying that matters have been improved, and that as a result of this case Ofsted now deals differently with such matters. I am still wary, however, that not enough has been done to pinpoint who was responsible on the day that little girl died, and to make them feel their responsibility.

A letter from Ofsted from December 2009, on exactly the same matter, states:

“On the law as it stands, it is not clear that we have the power to publish the regulatory history of the old company in connection with the new company. Our current position is that we do not do so. We do not have any direct evidence to show that providers have used changes in legal entity to remove a poor registration history deliberately, although we are aware and mindful of the risks on this going forward. However, our registration process is sufficiently robust to pick up any significant concerns, such that if required, we would refuse registration.”

That is not so. A little girl died in that nursery five years ago, and it has gone on trading every day since. Other two-year-olds have been in that nursery every day since the death of Rhiya Malin, and Ofsted has not taken the necessary steps to stop it happening again.

As I have said, this is a complicated matter, but I do not want the Minister and her officials to wriggle out of it by saying, “We cannot hold any particular individual responsible because that is a matter for the criminal law,” or, “We cannot hold this company responsible because the nursery is no longer owned by it—it has changed from being this company to that company and another company.” Individuals within those companies have been involved all along. I know what happens when company names change and ownership changes. I am bringing the matter before the House because somebody somewhere in the chain of responsibility should have stopped passing the buck and ticking the boxes. They should have said, “This is not a case in which a child was injured or something remotely distasteful occurred. A child died in this case. It is not run of the mill. It is not an every day occurrence—thank goodness.” This is an unusual and exceptional case, and it should have been dealt with as such.

As I have said, I appreciate that the Minister has not dealt with the matter before, but I ask her to look at these facts. The nursery is still in operation; the people who were in charge are still there; no one has been held responsible for the death; and nothing has been done to ensure that it never happens again. I hope she can give some answers today, but I appreciate that it is difficult for her to do so. I hope that those in the chain of responsibility—through Ofsted and other Government agencies—sit up and take note. It is unacceptable to allow five years and more to pass after the death of a small child in a place that was regulated by the Government, where such a child should have been safe and properly cared for.

In bringing the matter to the House, I pay tribute to Rhiya Malin’s parents—her bereaved, heartbroken parents. They could have drawn a line under their tragedy, but they did not. They have continued to campaign and to do all they can to ensure that no other parents and little children suffer the tragedy they have suffered. I pay tribute to them for all they have done and continue to do.

The Minister is not afraid of taking on a challenge. I hope that by bringing the matter to the House, I have given her an opportunity to take action to ensure that nurseries such as Eton Manor are safer in future, and that the people who run such nurseries as businesses—not for the sake of caring, but simply for the sake of making money—are not allowed to hide behind the corporate veil.

Oral Answers to Questions

Baroness Laing of Elderslie Excerpts

Monday 21st November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

The Institute for Fiscal Studies projections were based on its guesses. However, something it has said about reality rather than the future is that, at the moment, this Government are ensuring that schools educating the poorest receive the most, because our pupil premium will be worth £2.5 billion by the end of this Parliament. That is something the Government the hon. Lady supported last time round never did.

[Mrs Eleanor Laing (Epping Forest) (Con)]

T7. Is the Secretary of State aware that many, many parents of children with special needs who were struggling to find a suitable school will be very pleased that he has decided to extend the free schools programme to special schools? How many special schools does he estimate will be free schools within the next few years and how many children does he estimate that will help?

[Michael Gove]

I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for her point. We need to ensure that all children who have special needs are better educated and we particularly need to ensure that the energy and enthusiasm of people in the third sector are galvanised. At this stage, I cannot give her a firm figure on how many students and schools are involved; all I know is that a small bridgehead will expand over the course of this Parliament.

Academies Bill [Lords]

Baroness Laing of Elderslie Excerpts

Monday 19th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Ed Balls]

Exactly, and that is why my hon. Friend and I both fear that this will turn out to be a deeply divisive reform which will lead to a two-tier education system. Indeed, the clauses in the Bill are structured in such a way as to allow the Secretary of State to give funding arrangements to private companies taking over the running of schools—and we should have the opportunity to scrutinise such aspects of the Bill. We will see exactly what they saw in Sweden: private companies travelling around the country touting to parents by saying, “If you want to set up a school, we’ll do it for you—and we’ll make a profit out of it.” I think that will be deeply, deeply divisive.

[Mrs Eleanor Laing (Epping Forest) (Con)]

Is the right hon. Gentleman really saying that he and his party believe that it is not parents who know best how their children should be educated, but local authorities and people in Whitehall, because that is what he has just said in reply to the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Mr Slaughter)? Will the right hon. Gentleman acknowledge that parents should be the people who have the greatest say in their children’s education?

[Ed Balls]

There is no obligation on the governing body even to consult parents in deciding to opt for the new academy status. Of course the voice of parents is important, as are the choices for parents. What I am worried about—and we will table an amendment to prevent this—is profit-making companies taking over the entire management of schools and touting themselves for business. That amounts to completely ripping up the last 60 years of free state education. Secondly, on this point, if a group of parents wants to go it alone, there must be somebody whose job it is to say, “Will this contribute to, or undermine, social cohesion?” [Interruption.] Well, in that case, if parents know best, I predict this will lead to a huge rise in social division, not social cohesion, and I am very concerned about that.