Academies Bill [Lords]

Iain Wright Excerpts

Wednesday 21st July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Mark Field]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Iain Wright (Hartlepool) (Lab)]

He’s only just started.

[Mr Field]

Well, my point is actually rather important, because many of us fundamentally differ in our objectives for the education system and in our feelings about what it is there to achieve. The hon. Member for Hampstead and Kilburn (Glenda Jackson) made a very impassioned speech, but we should not be fooled, because some of us have very different objectives. Some of us do not feel that an egalitarian and equal education for every single child is necessarily the right way forward. Some Government Members feel very strongly that, given the global world in which we will compete in the decades ahead, we should look at an elitist education in order to ensure that our brightest and best have the very best opportunities without having to rely upon the wealth of their parents.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ian Mearns]

With your leave, Ms Primarolo, I am happy to withdraw the amendment and to defer to the amendments that are put at the appropriate time later. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

[Mr Iain Wright]

I beg to move amendment 20, page 1, line 22, at end insert—

(za) if the school is an additional school, the school meets a proven need for additional capacity in the area in which the school is situated;’.

[The Second Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means]

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following: amendment 50, in clause 9, page 7, line 4, at end insert—

‘(2A) For the purposes of subsection (2) “impact” refers to—

(a) the impact on funding for the other maintained schools, Academies and institutions within the further education sector situated in the area in which the additional school is (or is proposed to be) situated;

(b) the effect on social cohesion in the area in which the additional school is (or is proposed to be) situated;

(c) the impact on the balance of intake for the other maintained schools, Academies and institutions within the further education sector situated in the area in which the additional school is (or is proposed to be) situated; and

(d) other appropriate considerations.’.

New clause 3—Local policies in relation to additional schools—

(1) A local authority must at the annual general meeting of that authority publish a “Statement of current and future need” in relation to school places in that local authority area.

(2) This statement—

(a) may consider the need for further diversity of provision in a given area;

(b) may consider the satisfaction of local parents with existing schools;

(c) must have regard to social cohesion; and

(d) must have regard to population and the current and future demand for total school places.

(3) The Secretary of State must—

(a) satisfy himself that the additional school meets substantive needs as set out in the statement under subsection (1);

(b) where the additional school does not meet substantive needs set out in the statement under subsection (1) the Secretary of State must arrange for any substantive identified needs to be met; or

(c) must not enter into Academy arrangements for the additional school under consideration.’.

New clause 5—Inducements to pupils, parents or guardians—

‘No person or organisation may offer inducements to pupils, parents or guardians for the purposes of encouraging—

(a) attendance at a school;

(b) expressions of demand for the establishment of an additional school;

(c) recommending attendance at a school;

(d) participation in any consultation on the establishment of an additional school; or

(e) any public statement.’.

Amendment 29, in clause 9, page 7, line 9, leave out subsection (4).

Amendment 33, in clause 10, page 7, line 13, leave out subsection (1) and insert—

‘(1) Before entering into Academy arrangements with the Secretary of State in relation to an additional school, a person must consult—

(a) local parents and children,

(b) local schools,

(c) the relevant local authority,

(d) all school staff and their representatives, and

(e) any other persons deemed appropriate.’.

Amendment 5, page 7, line 14, leave out ‘such’ and insert—

(a) the local education authority for the area in which the additional school is (or is proposed to be) situated,

(b) the teachers at maintained schools, Academies and institutions within the further education sector in that area,

(c) the pupils at any establishment falling within paragraph (b),

(d) the parents of those pupils,

(e) such persons as, in the opinion of the person undertaking the consultation, represent the wider community, and

(f) such other’.

[Mr Wright]

This group of amendments seeks to address two fundamental weaknesses in the Bill, namely a chronic lack of consultation with relevant stakeholders and a failure to consider the capacity of the wider education system in an area where free-market schools may be established.

There is a shocking lack of consultation in the Bill, but the Schools Minister and his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State are conviction politicians and men of strength and leadership, so they have nothing to be frightened of. In the short time that the Secretary of State has been in office, however, he has demonstrated an unwillingness or an inability to consult on anything, whether it has been the Building Schools for the Future cuts or the indecent haste with which the House has had to scrutinise the Bill.

Let me illustrate that point with regard to the amendments. The National Governors Association, in its guidance to members about the legislation, stated:

“The Bill as it is currently drafted does not require you to consult anyone.”

A governing body can apply to become an academy without consulting teachers, parents, children, the wider community, trade unions or local authority, and there is no obligation to consult parents or the wider community in order to explain the vision or the academy’s functions. On Report in another place, the Government introduced an amendment that allows new academies to

“consult such persons as they think appropriate”,

but that concession was vaguely drafted and the Bill needs to go further.

My hon. Friend the Member for Gateshead (Ian Mearns), who is no longer in his place, said earlier today that a good school is not an island, and I absolutely agree. A good school is an institution that has a positive partnership with neighbouring schools and a constructive relationship with the community in which it operates. But the Bill does not take that into account. Instead, it ensures that the most important relationship is between the school and the Secretary of State, rather than between the school and its economic and social environment.

I am also unclear about how staff will be consulted under the Bill, and I hope that in responding the Minister will specifically answer that point. As far as I understand it, there is no obligation to consult staff about changes to the school model, but there will be huge ramifications in terms of the legal challenges to that, especially if TUPE arrangements need to be properly considered.

I have already mentioned the indecent haste of the Bill’s passage through Parliament. If some institutions are to be set up as academies or free schools as early as six weeks from now, in September, and if many schools have either finished, or might finish in the next couple of days, for the summer, is there any time logistically to consult staff and unions properly on the ramifications for staffing contracts? Article 12 of the UN convention on the rights of the child gives children the right to express views on matters affecting them, a point that was made in Committee in another place, but nothing in the Bill allows children’s views to be heard on a future that affects them.

Another fundamental question is, what impact will a new school have? Where does the Bill allow for the need to assess and challenge a new school, or for people who want to introduce one to demonstrate where it will improve education not just for its own intake, but for the surrounding area and students of adjacent schools? If an area takes on additional free schools, academies or both without appropriate consultation or consideration, we must accept that there is a strong risk of existing maintained schools becoming unviable. That arrangement will inevitably lead to an unfair, two-tier system of schooling, and this country’s education system will fragment, with all the negative social consequences that that produces.

Without my amendments and those of my right hon. and hon. Friends, the Bill will ensure that funding flows towards new, free-market schools without any assessment of capacity or need. In Committee in the other place, it was confirmed that local authorities and other stakeholders were essentially being booted out of the way to enable additional school places to be created in a completely ad hoc, free-market way. The only check on this is the Secretary of State, rather than local people with a passion for their area and schools and knowledge of local circumstances. The creation of those additional places will be funded at the expense of existing school budgets and the loss of school buildings. It will also lead to a fragmentation of education, as I have said. It will leave some pupils behind, and it does not raise standards in schools at all. I ask the Minister to respond to those concerns and to think again.

As my right hon. Friend the shadow Secretary of State said on Second Reading, which seems only a matter of hours ago—in fact, given the haste of this Bill’s passage, it was only a few hours ago—having examined the case for a new parent-promoted school in Kirklees, Professor David Woods said that it would

“have a negative impact on other schools in the area in the form of surplus places and an adverse effect on revenue and capital budgets.”

[Mel Stride (Central Devon) (Con)]

Is it not the case, though, that if we do not sometimes have excess places, we deny parents the choice that in turn drives the improvement in standards within schools, and end up in the situation that we are in at the moment whereby we are going down the league tables in mathematics and literacy, and of the 80,000 pupils who have free school meals, only 45 are getting into Oxford and Cambridge and our better universities?

[Mr Wright]

I would be happy to allow the hon. Gentleman to intervene on me again if he could provide a direct correlation between surplus capacity, which is what he is suggesting, and rising standards and quality in schools. I do not see a close correlation between capacity and quality, but if he would like to enlighten me on that, I am more than happy for him to intervene.

[Mel Stride]

Does not the hon. Gentleman accept that there is a correlation between increased parental choice—after all, it is parents who know what is best for their children and can spot a good school as opposed to a bad one—and an improvement in standards?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Wright]

I certainly agree with choice in the education system, but it would be choice for a very narrow stratum of society—predominantly middle class, media-articulate, affluent parents at the expense of disadvantaged communities. That is wrong: we need to raise standards completely across the board.

In the Bill as it stands, there is nothing to stop a load of private sector chancers, keen on making a quick profit, from contacting local parents in an area and suggesting that perhaps a new school could be beneficial, without any appropriate checks and balances on the impact that such free-market profiteers would have on educational quality, provision and capacity. Those free-market chancers could incentivise the local community with perhaps with a free laptop or the opportunity to enter a competition to win something if they expressed an interest in providing a new free school. New clause 5 would allow that to be stopped. It would ensure that there were effective checks and balances so that no person or organisation could offer inducements to pupils, parents or guardians for the purpose of new school places.

This afternoon, we had an extremely heated and interesting debate in Westminster Hall about Building Schools for the Future. Following what the Secretary of State said in his statement, 735 schools will no longer be refurbished or rebuilt. A review of the school capital programme is to be carried out by Sebastian James. Let me quote from the terms of the review:

“The overall aim of the review is to ensure that future capital investment represents good value for money and strongly supports the Government’s ambitions to reduce the deficit, raise standards and tackle disadvantage.”

Okay, that is the narrative that the Secretary of State has been producing—I understand that. However, the terms of the review also state that it is intended to do the following:

“To consider how to generate sufficient places to allow new providers to enter the state school system in response to parental demand…To increase choice locally determined by parental demand”,

and, crucially,

“To enable the establishment of new schools.”

Will the Minister discount the scenario whereby in a community where parents are disappointed that schools will not be rebuilt or refurbished under BSF, the Secretary of State could say, “But if you set up a new free school you can unilaterally decide to have a school capital building programme, and what is more, we will provide the school capital to allow you to do that, regardless of the impact that it will have on the wider educational provision in your local area. If you and a few other parents decide to do that, we will drop you a load of money to make sure you can have a rebuilt school.” Will the Minister confirm that that will not happen?

If a new school is to be established, surely it is courteous, and just common sense, to establish what people in the local area think of the proposal. Surely it is important to scrutinise the impact and effect that it will have on existing schools. The amendments therefore highlight the need to ensure that local people are satisfied that there is a clear and rational case for additional capacity in education provision, that the proposal has been subject to local consultation, scrutiny and challenge, and that additional provision could best be served through the establishment of a new school.

Amendment 33 addresses the risks that I have outlined to the Committee and is therefore very important. Before arrangements for setting up a new free-market school are entered into, there should be consultation with local parents and children, schools, the local authority, school staff and unions and any other persons deemed appropriate. We believe that the amendment would involve relevant and important stakeholders in a fundamental decision about changes to education in a particular area.

Amendment 50 follows on from that point and addresses the risk of fragmentation in the education system as a result of setting up a free school. To avoid a two-tier system and funding being automatically diverted to new free schools without any consideration of the impact on existing schools’ finances or the number of students in the wider local education authority, the amendment would insert into the Bill a requirement to consider various factors. Those are

“the impact on funding for the other maintained schools…the effect on social cohesion in the area in which the additional school is (or is proposed to be) situated”

and

“the impact on the balance of intake”

for other schools in the area and the further education sector. That last point is important, and I am pleased to see the Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr Hayes), who is responsible for further education, on the Treasury Bench. I shall return to that matter later in my remarks.

Amendment 20 is an attempt to rein in free-market abandon and address the point that I have already made about capacity. It would add to the characteristics in clause 1(6) that must be demonstrated by a potential additional school if one is to be established. That subsection is currently broad to the point of being vague and, I would argue, meaningless. The amendment states that if there is to be an additional school in an area, it must be demonstrated as part of the selection process that it

“meets a proven need for additional capacity in the area in which the school is situated.”

As the Bill is currently drafted, when an academy order has been made, the converting school or relevant local authority will not have to follow the school closure procedures set out in section 30 of the School Standards and Framework Act 1998 or sections 15 to 17 of the Education and Inspections Act 2006. The relevant provisions in the 1998 Act are designed specifically to ensure that reflection is made on the consequences of a closure. Those provisions are that the governing body should give at least two years’ notice to the Secretary of State, and that if closure would affect the facilities for full-time education for post-16-year-olds, the relevant further education funding council should be consulted. I believe that in the current regime that would be the Young People’s Learning Agency, but it would be useful if the Minister confirmed that. Those provisions allow the decision on closing a school to be considered in a proper manner.

Removing the provisions of sections 15 to 17 of the 2006 Act is particularly risky. Those sections essentially ensure that when a school maintained by a local authority is to be discontinued, the authority must publish its proposals. Prior to that, the relevant body must consult the registered parents of pupils at the affected school as well as the local education authority. That just seems like good common sense. When there are proposals to discontinue a school, there should be the widest possible consultation, challenge and scrutiny. I ask the Minister to tell us specifically why it was felt necessary to remove those requirements, which seem like good, plain common sense.

Clause 9(4) states that an additional school is not to be considered a maintained school

“if it provides education for pupils of a wider range of ages than the maintained school.”

That is a significant part of the Bill, and at the risk of being too melodramatic, I believe it could prove the death knell for our current further education sector. I shall expand that argument with reference to my constituency. For a relatively small town, Hartlepool has a diverse offer of 16-to-19 provision. It has a college of further education, a sixth-form college, a specialist art and design college and a Catholic school sixth-form college. The choice on offer for students in Hartlepool is really quite rich, and it works incredibly well, but under clause 10(4), a school in Hartlepool or anywhere else that currently offers 11-to-16 provision could apply to become an 11-to-18 free school or academy without consideration for the wider area, without consultation regarding current post-16 provision, and without any assessment of whether the new arrangements are feasible, viable or desirable. That cannot be right or sensible. I would be grateful if the Minister could, before his winding-up speech, have a word with the Business, Innovation and Skills Minister, to determine the rationale behind that measure, because it puts at risk the advances that have been made in the FE sector since incorporation in 1992-93.

[Mr Graham Stuart]

I may be reading clause 10 incorrectly, but it seems to me to have precisely the opposite meaning to the one the hon. Gentleman suggests. It states that

“a school does not replace a maintained school if it provides education for pupils of a wider range of ages”,

which means that it would be viewed as an additional school, and therefore that it comes under clause 10(2), which states:

“The Secretary of State must take into account what the impact of establishing the additional school would be likely to be on maintained schools, Academies and institutions…in the area”.

As I said, the measure therefore appears to have the opposite effect to the one the hon. Gentleman suggests.

[Mr Wright]

That is certainly not how I interpret the Bill. Amendment 50 is a probing amendment, because given the advances in FE provision and the huge choice in my constituency, I would hate anything that meant that an 11-to-16 school could disrupt post-16 provision.

The amendment would ensure that institutions within the FE sector, as well as the local education authority, pupils and parents are consulted. It is also important that that wider family—I hate that phrase—of education providers is consulted, but that will have a direct impact on post-16 provision.

The Opposition have faith in parents, pupils, teachers, councils and the wider community, and we think that their views should be taken into account when setting up academies, and that no new free-market schools that fragment the current system should be set up. That could lead to a two-tier system and compromise the viability of current schools and colleges.

[Chris Skidmore]

The hon. Gentleman has a near-obsession with free-market schools, but nowhere in the Bill do I see them mentioned. However, clause 12, “Charitable status of Academy proprietors etc”, suggests that no such free market is created by the Bill. Rather, it suggests that the money is charitable money, and that it will remain within the state sector.

[Mr Wright]

I disagree with the hon. Gentleman. In all their rhetoric on free-market schools, the Education Secretary and his ministerial team want to encourage parents to set up free schools that are beyond the scope and authorisation of the local education authority. The Opposition believe that we ought to think of education in an area holistically, and ask what impact unilaterally setting up a new school will have on existing maintained schools and wider education providers, such as FE colleges. That is important.

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

I understand the Opposition’s concern, but does the hon. Gentleman agree that the private school sector benefits most when parents and others who have an appetite to set up a school in an area are not allowed to do so, because those parents, as a last resort, will send their children to private schools? If any lobby group is most against the plans in the Bill, it is that of private and smaller private schools, which believe that their income will suffer if parents can send their children to nearby small schools. Does he recognise that the effect of liberating a market or creating a so-called free market might be to alleviate the great divide that currently exists between private and state education?

[Mr Wright]

I have no problem whatever with anything the hon. Lady says. If parents decide, for whatever reason, that a new state-funded school is necessary, they should be given help and support for it. If birth rates are rising, or if people think that there is not enough capacity in the education system, it is perfectly reasonable to do that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Gibb]

I will ponder the points that both my hon. Friends have made and I will write to them shortly to set out our position with greater clarity.

In the letter to lead Members sent on 26 May, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State made it clear that the Government see strong local authorities as central to our plans to improve education. We want to see a smooth transition to the new school system and want a genuine dialogue with local government—and other partners—to that end. There are important questions about the role of local authorities in school improvement, how to ensure that local provision meets the needs of all children in an area, including the most vulnerable, and how we help schools to understand the opportunities, freedoms and responsibilities of the new system.

Over the next weeks and months, we want a further dialogue with local government on those and related matters, and we do not think it would be right to pre-empt those discussions by accepting the amendment, which would clearly place a bureaucratic burden on local authorities ahead of a wider discussion about their continuing role. As I have already explained, additional schools are required to consult locally on their proposals, and the Secretary of State has a duty to consider the wider impact of any school on its local area, so a requirement for him to take account of an annual report provided by the local authority would, in our view, be unnecessary.

On new clause 5, we share the commitment of the hon. Member for Hartlepool (Mr Wright) to promoting fair and proper processes when establishing all new schools, including free schools, which is why we have put in place a rigorous approval process and are requiring that groups comply with every aspect of it before being allowed to open a new school. As part of the process to establish a free school, groups will have to demonstrate that there is genuine, robust demand for places at the school they are proposing, both at the proposal stage and in completing their business case and plan. To meet this requirement, we expect groups to provide evidence of this demand, perhaps through a petition or a declaration from interested parties, but in every case demonstrating clear evidence of unmet local need, not just expressions of support.

The new clause would prevent organisations or groups from offering financial inducements to parents and pupils to encourage them to attend or support new free schools. It is, of course, right that we would not wish to see any organisation trying to manipulate public opinion or to give financial incentives to any person to obtain their support. However, it shows a marked lack of trust in parents, if I may say so to the hon. Gentleman, to suggest that they would send their child to any school on the back of a financial incentive. They will obviously want to send their child to the best school possible.

[Mr Iain Wright]

Will the Minister address the point I made on this subject? Parents might quite rightly be disappointed about Building Schools for the Future capital being scrapped, but are the Secretary of State or the Minister saying, “We’re trying to look for additional school capital programmes, and if you set up a new school, you’ll be first in line, regardless of what the wider community requires”? Can he say that that will definitely not be the case?

[Mr Gibb]

We have allocated £50 million of funding from the harnessing technology fund to restart the standards and diversity fund, which was established in 2008 by the hon. Gentleman’s Government to promote new schools. That is the fund that will provide capital for free schools until 31 March 2011. It is quite clear that it does not come from the Building Schools for the Future fund.

New clause 5 would have an unintended consequence as a result of its wide scope. For example, it would prevent a school from being able to offer subsidies for the provision of school uniforms to pupils from low-income families, which I am sure is not something that Labour Members would want.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Gibb]

Well, no disrespect right back at you. The point is that the TUPE regulations are already in statute and they have to be followed. Whenever there is a transfer of undertakings, those procedures are followed, and there is no need to set that out in the Bill. However, we are simply adopting the same approach that the previous Government took to academies, which is that we regulate through the funding agreement. The hon. Lady can also be assured that the things said in this House are on the record for her to hold us to account against, so the more she can get me to say now, the more reassured she can be.

This Government’s approach is to let the people who have the experience and knowledge in their areas of work make the decisions that will affect them. The promoter of a free school will know who the interested parties are in their local area. Any proposal for a free school must be able to demonstrate genuine, robust demand for places at the proposed school—for example, through a petition or a declaration from interested parties. As I said, clause 9 requires the Secretary of State, when deciding whether to enter into academy arrangements with a free school, to take into account the impact of such a school on existing schools and colleges in the area. That will ensure that when decisions on any free school proposal are made, due consideration will always be given to its wider implications.

I want to run through some of the other points that the hon. Member for Hartlepool made. I made the point about consultation, but he also talked about academies being disconnected from their surrounding areas. However, the model funding agreement for academies, which hon. Members will have seen, explicitly says that

“the school will be at the heart of its community, sharing facilities with other schools and the wider community”.

That is a key provision of the model funding agreement.

The hon. Gentleman also talked about TUPE. Consultation can take place after the academy order has been made. The key issue for staff transferring—he also mentioned the discussions taking place in August—is the signing of the funding agreement. These consultations can take place well into September and October before the funding agreement is signed.

The hon. Gentleman asked about the disapplication of sections 15 and 17 of the Education Inspections Act 2006 for schools converting under clause 4. This is relevant because under those arrangements the school is not closing, but converting, so there is no need for provisions to govern all the steps that have to be gone through when a school is closed. Consultations are provided for, as I said, under clause 5. He also asked about the impact on the further education sector. Clause 9(2) requires the Secretary of State to take into account the impact on colleges as well as on other schools.

My hon. Friend the Member for North Cornwall (Dan Rogerson) asked about the facilities at free schools. Health and safety law will, of course, apply. Ofsted will continue to inspect, and there are detailed provisions about fire, safety, security and structure, food hygiene and so forth in the Education (Independent School Standards) (England) Regulations 2003, which will now apply to academies. Those regulations are very detailed; if they were not detailed, many independent schools around the country would have the same worries as my hon. Friend.

With those few remarks, I hope that I have assured hon. Members on both sides of the Committee, and I urge them not to press their amendments.

[Mr Iain Wright]

I begin by thanking the Minister for his usual courtesy and kindness in wishing my daughter Hattie a very happy birthday. The whole Committee is welcome to join us for “Toy Story 3” on Sunday, if it so wishes.

The Minister has reassured me to some extent on clauses 9 and 10 and on the model funding agreement. That goes some way to addressing my concerns and I also thank him for clarifying some points about the FE sector. However, he has not gone far enough. As I said, there are fundamental weaknesses at the heart of the Bill, as seen in this group of amendments. Those weaknesses are on capacity and on consultation. With great respect to the Minister, he has not reassured me on those matters.

More to the point, some comments by the hon. Members for North Cornwall (Dan Rogerson) and for Hexham (Guy Opperman), and the excellent comments by the Chair of the Select Committee, showed that there is concern about the gap in the appropriate level of consultation. I understand that the Minister hopes to ponder on that issue, but I would suggest that he table a Government amendment on Report, which we could consider. I would be more than happy to discuss any such amendment with him. I suspect, however, that he will not do that.

I repeat that there are fundamental weaknesses on capacity, which amendment 20 would address, and on consultation, which amendment 33 would address. I would therefore like to test the opinion of the Committee on those amendments.

[The Temporary Chairman (Martin Caton)]

Only amendment 20 can be pressed at this time.

Question put, That the amendment be made.