Oral Answers to Questions

Iain Wright Excerpts

Monday 7th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hayes]

As I have said, we will ensure that those who are worse off are not disadvantaged by the system. Redistributing advantage and ensuring that there is a change in the prospects and opportunities for those who begin worse off is at the heart of all that this Government do. We are the champions of social justice—past, present and future.

[Mr Iain Wright (Hartlepool) (Lab)]

In last month’s debate on the education maintenance allowance, the Secretary of State pledged that any replacement scheme for EMA would cover the costs of transport and equipment and would support young people with special educational needs or learning disabilities as well as those with caring responsibilities, teenage parents and those who were eligible for free school meals when at school. Given that research from the House of Commons Library indicates that such pledges would have a first-year cost of £480 million and ongoing costs of £420 million a year, will the Minister confirm, on behalf of the Secretary of State, that this is the budget for EMA’s successor and that he stands by the pledges he made to the House?

[Mr Hayes]

The hon. Gentleman is far too experienced as a Minister to expect me to make that kind of on-the-hoof promise. Equally, he knows that we are determined to amend this scheme to allow it to be targeted using the discretion to do the kind of things that he highlighted. After all, his own shadow Secretary of State has said:

“I have never set my face against changes or savings to the EMA scheme.”—[Official Report, 19 January 2011; Vol. 521, c. 863.]

School Governance

Iain Wright Excerpts

Tuesday 1st February 2011 Westminster Hall

[Mr Iain Wright (Hartlepool) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship again, Mr Dobbin. I congratulate the hon. Member for South Swindon (Mr Buckland) on securing an important debate. I recall how passionate and knowledgeable he was about special educational needs during our deliberations on the Academies Bill on the Floor of the House last summer. Indeed, he mentioned during that debate—as he has today—the role of the governing body in securing suitable provision. He has demonstrated that passion and knowledge again this morning and I thank him for it.

I also pay tribute to the high quality contributions from the hon. Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy), who drew upon his considerable knowledge of teaching and governance, and the hon. Members for Wirral West (Esther McVey) and for Hexham (Guy Opperman).

This has been a high quality debate and it gives us the opportunity to do several things. First, it enables us to thank governors throughout the country for their work in our education system. Secondly, I would like to build on some of the comments that have been made and ask the Minister with responsibility for schools about his vision for governors, governance and governing bodies as his Department radically alters education policy in our country.

As the hon. Member for South Swindon has said, there are more than 300,000 school governors at work today. Governors are one of the largest groups of volunteers and one of the best examples of civic engagement in this country. This quiet army of hundreds of thousands of people play an unheralded, and often unsung, but nevertheless critical, role in providing the best possible environment for children to grow and learn. At their best, governing bodies set the ethos and strategic direction of a school, appoint a great head teacher and a high calibre senior management team to drive through that strategy and provide support, and challenge and scrutinise the leadership team, holding it to account on behalf of parents and the local community. They have a big responsibility in our education system.

As we have heard, there is a clear relationship between governance and the performance of a school. Good governance improves the quality of leadership and management in schools, as well as that of teaching and pupils’ achievements. Conversely, where there is poor or unsatisfactory governance, and where the relationship between the governing body and the head teacher has broken down—as the hon. Member for Wirral West expressed so vividly—pupil potential goes unfulfilled. Given the importance, therefore, that school governance plays in educational success, I am surprised that this Government have said so little about it.

In an education White Paper of nearly 100 pages, I counted only four small paragraphs on school governors, and one highlighted how the governing body could decide on the time of the school day. The publication of the White Paper was accompanied by a document, “The Case for Change”, which provided a rationale for education reform, but did not mention the role of the governing body.

The recently published Education Bill has 79 clauses and 17 schedules, but I could find only two small clauses on the role of the governing body. Given the vital role that school governors play, I hope that the Minister will give a definitive reassurance that professional, passionate and high quality governors are an essential and valued part of our school system. I also hope that he will give the Chamber an explanation of why, in the first few months of the new Government, governors and school governance have been largely overlooked or ignored by his Department. I have several questions about specific parts of governance and the role that governors and governing bodies can play, and I hope that the Minister will be able to provide some answers.

On size, when the Government mention governing bodies, they invariably state that a smaller governing body is more effective. The White Paper notes:

“Smaller governing bodies with the right skills are able to be more decisive, supporting the head teacher and championing high standards.”

That may well be the case, but the Government do not provide any evidence to substantiate that assertion. Why would smaller governing bodies necessarily be better? Where is the evidence? How does the Minister reconcile that view with last year’s advice from the ministerial working group on school governance—I think that the hon. Member for South Swindon cited this—that 14 members can be the optimum size of a governing body? Surely the effectiveness of a governing body is more complex than sheer size, and takes into account matters such as turnover of governors, blend of skills, participation and work load. If the Government’s direction of travel is to reduce the size of governing bodies, what will be done to retain corporate memory and expertise? It would be much more difficult to do that if a governing body with five members, as opposed to one with 15, lost a member.

The hon. Member for South Swindon mentioned the importance of retaining and obtaining skills such as finance, personnel and so on. How will a school with a much smaller governing body be able to obtain all that much-needed expertise, which includes marketing and strategic planning? I will be interested to hear the Minister’s response.

The vehicle to reduce the size of governing bodies is the Education Bill, which was published last week and is due to have its Second Reading next week. I imagine that the Minister and I will have lots of discussions about many issues in the Bill, but I should like to draw his attention at this stage to one clause in particular. Clause 37 refers to the constitution of governing bodies in maintained schools in England, and it will amend section 19 of the Education Act 2002. This change ensures that governing bodies will consist predominantly of parent governors and the head teacher of the school.

I have a number of questions about that. First, how is this approach reconciled with the sentiments expressed by the White Paper? It notes:

“Many of the most successful schools have smaller governing bodies”—

we have already established that that is what the Government think—

“with individuals drawn from a wide range of people rooted in the community, such as parents, businesses, local government and the voluntary sector.”

That point was expressed eloquently by the hon. Member for Brigg and Goole, who has left to attend a Delegated Legislation Committee. What precisely is the clause designed to do to help encourage a diverse range of potential governors to come forward? Given that the ministerial working group on school governance concluded that governing bodies already have the flexibility to determine the best size for their school and for them, what does the clause actually do? What does it propose that the 2002 Act prevents?

The White Paper also states that from early 2012 the Government will allow all schools to adopt a flexible model of school governance, while ensuring that governing bodies have a minimum of two parent governors. Will the Minister further outline how he anticipates that to be undertaken? How will governing bodies do it? What will be the role of the head teacher? Will he or she outline to the governing body what they believe will be required, or will such a role be retained by the governing body? How will the process work?

Recruitment and retention are important and have already been touched upon. I think that the hon. Member for Brigg and Goole has already mentioned this, but some 11% of governor posts are vacant, and they are, disproportionately, in disadvantaged or inner-city areas. We have heard that schools with more vacancies on the governing body tend to perform more poorly due to the lack of challenge, scrutiny and support for the school’s leadership team. What proactive steps is the Minister taking to ensure that vacancies on governing bodies, particularly in areas of deprivation, are filled?

The hon. Members for Hexham and for Brigg and Goole mentioned the importance of retaining and attracting good governors to governing bodies. Given the demands of modern life, what are the Government doing to recruit good potential governors? As the Government’s focus on governance moves towards parent governors, does the Minister accept that the problems of recruitment and succession planning will increase because parent governors will inevitably leave after four or five years as their children move through the school? Parent governors might lose interest in being a proactive member of the governing body and leave that body. What does the Minister anticipate will happen about succession planning?

Common barriers to participation in school governance include lack of time, family or work commitments, lack of publicity and awareness of the opportunities for involvement, and a reluctance by some governing bodies to take on a governor who is not previously known to them. Will the Minister let hon. Members know what steps he is taking to remove those barriers as far as possible? Another important point mentioned in today’s debate is that of having a federation of schools. Are the Government actively looking at having a federation of governing bodies, whereby a single governing body can play a strategic role for a number of schools? If the Government agree with that approach, what additional initial support and assistance can they provide to allow that to happen?

That brings me to an important point that creates a bit of a paradox in the Government’s education policy—the hon. Member for Brigg and Goole was good at hinting at this during his comments. Education policy is moving towards a position whereby schools stand alone and are independent of the local authority. The move is arguably—although I would dispute this to some extent—away from Whitehall. I think that the Education Bill will centralise matters between schools and the Secretary of State in a way that we have never seen before. However, how can we reconcile a situation in which schools stand alone with the fact that the previous Labour Government, through the former Department for Children, Schools and Families, moved towards collaboration and partnership, with the local authority helping to provide a strategic overview? The local authorities were not running schools, but they were providing strategic direction in an area. What steps will the Government take to ensure that that collaboration and partnership at a school governance level can be maintained, if not enhanced?

I would also like to ask about training and induction. It is very arduous to become a school governor, particularly a good and effective one. What are the Government doing to ensure that individual governors and collective governing bodies identify any weaknesses and help plug those gaps, either with additional training, additional recruitment to the governing body or focused training? Does the Minister agree with the concept of mandatory training for governing bodies? The hon. Member for South Swindon mentioned the important role of the chair of a governing body. What additional support can be provided to enable the chair to perform his or her duty to the best of his or her abilities? He also mentioned the vital but often overlooked need to have a high calibre, knowledgeable and experienced clerk to the governing body. What steps will the Government take to ensure that that is also very much a key part of school governance?

When I was a Minister in the Department for Children, Schools and Families, I was concerned about the role of information, advice and guidance, and the importance of interaction between schools and the outside community, particularly with business. The governing body can, through the high calibre business men and women who are active on it, provide that good interaction. Particularly with regards to information, advice and guidance, governors can come into a school and provide real life stories based upon their personal experiences of inspiration and motivation. They can tell students how hard work can help people succeed and achieve their ambition. Given the changes to the information, advice and guidance provision, what further steps can the Minister take to ensure that that interaction between schools, the governing body and outside business works effectively?

Finally, I shall talk about the role of the head teacher in the governing body. May I press the Minister on whether he believes that automatic inclusion of the head on the governing body as a full member can constitute a conflict of interest? I think that everyone would agree that heads should attend governing body meetings and have a right to speak, be challenged and scrutinise. However, does that important role of supporting the head teacher while at the same time challenging mean that good governance should lead us to make the head a non-voting member who does not participate in decision making? In a similar vein, will the Minister confirm that, as indicated by his White Paper and the provisions of the Education Bill, the Government do not necessary agree with the concept of staff governors?

In the past few months, the Government have spoken a lot about their vision for education and how teachers, head teachers, parents and others can play their part in fulfilling student potential and ambition. The fact that they have not highlighted the essential role of the governor is a glaring omission and a further example of weakness in their education policy. However, given the high calibre of today’s debate, I hope that the Minister will rectify that now and highlight more fully than he has in the past how governors and school governance can play an essential role in the education system of our country.

[The Minister of State, Department for Education (Mr Nick Gibb)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Dobbin. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for South Swindon (Mr Buckland) on securing this important debate on school governance. I know that the subject is close to his heart because he served as a school governor for four years prior to his election to the House. I join the hon. Member for Hartlepool (Mr Wright) in pointing out the high quality of the debate and of the contributions of my hon. Friends the Members for Hexham (Guy Opperman), for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson), for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy) and for Wirral West (Esther McVey).

There are some 300,000 school governors, which makes them one of the largest volunteer forces in the country. School governors work in their spare time to promote school improvement and to support head teachers and teachers in their work. They are an important part of the big society agenda and play a vital civic role. In the words of my hon. Friends the Members for South Swindon and for Wirral West, they play a pivotal role in our schools system. Every one of the 300,000 school governors deserves our thanks for their work and time and, more importantly, for taking on such important responsibilities. We all know how difficult it is to find people locally to take on such responsibilities. It is easy to get volunteers, but there is often a poor show of hands when it comes to taking on responsibilities. We owe a huge debt of thanks to those who are prepared to take on such a role.

My hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole is right to question whether we are doing things in the right way. Our White Paper, “The Importance of Teaching”, which was referred to by the hon. Member for Hartlepool, was published in November and sets out the coalition Government’s intention to increase freedom and autonomy for schools and to remove unnecessary duties and burdens. It also states that we should allow schools to choose for themselves how best to develop, whether by acquiring academy status, by becoming multi-school trusts and federations—again, those were referred to by the hon. Gentleman—or by continued development as a maintained school. All that is to be underpinned by clear accountability and strong and effective governance.

As we work through our programme of reform, those freedoms need to be extended to school governors, so that they are given the flexibilities, support and recognition they deserve. We know that the quality of school governance has a significant impact on how well schools perform. Good governance and leadership at school level are key drivers in achieving better educational outcomes. Academies provide examples of smaller, high-powered governing bodies that have demonstrated rapid improvements in standards. The arrangements for academy governance allow for greater flexibility in the number and category of governors than in maintained schools, while ensuring that essential groups, such as parents, are always represented. They are charities, so it would not be appropriate or right for us to prescribe the exact composition and size of their governing body. That flexibility is a popular concept and there are many differing governance arrangements in converting schools. They are now able to constitute their governing body to suit their school and local needs.

As my hon. Friend the Member for South Swindon will recall, maintained school governing bodies, which include foundation schools, are constituted under the stakeholder model. That model prescribes representation from groups with an interest in the school: for example, parents, staff—including the head teacher—the community, the local authority and the foundation or trust, where schools have one. The model goes on to prescribe the representation from each group.

We want to make it easier for schools to adopt governance models that work for them and which clearly hold the school to account. That is why the Education Bill, introduced by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education last Wednesday, includes provision to free up the constitution of maintained school governing bodies. We are legislating to provide that governing bodies will mirror the academies model and be required to have at least two elected parent governors and the head teacher, unless the head teacher chooses not to take up his position as a governor. Then, as the hon. Member for Hartlepool mentioned, they should be able to attend the governing body as the head teacher, but not as a full member of the governing body.

The church or foundation will still be able to appoint the majority of the governing body in voluntary aided and foundation schools. Other governors, such as authority governors, community governors, staff governors, partnership governors and associate members will be appointed at the discretion of the governing body, and in numbers determined by them. Academy governing bodies have built-in safeguards to prevent particular categories of governor from dominating the governing body; for example, staff governors cannot exceed one third of the total membership, and charity law prevents those connected with local authorities from having more than 20% of the membership. We will consider the effect of such restrictions in maintained schools, but we want to move to a less prescriptive model overall.

[Mr Iain Wright]

I apologise to the Minister if he is coming on to this point, but will he respond to an issue raised about the constitution of the governing body? The hon. Member for Wirral West (Esther McVey) made important points about how to identify failure in school governance and what will constitute failure. What will be the mechanisms by which a local authority or some other body—perhaps the Secretary of State—can determine change within the governing body?

[Mr Gibb]

If the hon. Gentleman will be patient, I will come to the detailed questions raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral West shortly.

We do not intend to prescribe any particular model, which is the overarching policy direction, as we believe that governing bodies are best placed to determine what will work best for them locally. It is important to point out that the changes will be permissive rather than mandatory, and that there is no intention to force any change on governing bodies. We will therefore encourage governing bodies to recruit more governors on a skills basis and carry out skills audits to inform that task. Those were also the conclusions of the working group on governance referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for South Swindon and the hon. Member for Hartlepool. Its report recommended clear accountability and felt that size was not the key issue for a governing body; a more important issue for the report was the skills of the governing body. It recommended that governing bodies should be free to recruit by relaxing the stakeholder model, which is precisely what the Government are introducing in the Education Bill.

We know that volunteers from a business background bring a valuable range of skills from the workplace to governing bodies, and are more likely to take on important responsibilities such as chairing committees or, indeed, chairing the governing body. To that end, we will continue to support the School Governors’ One-Stop Shop to recruit and place governor volunteers from the business world in schools with vacancies. That has been very successful: by the end of December it had recruited nearly 11,000 governors and placed them on to governing bodies with vacancies. In addition, the Education and Employers Taskforce is working with CEOs of large businesses to develop partnerships between schools, colleges and employers. It encourages senior business leaders to visit schools, and encourages staff with the right skills and experience to become school governors. In fact, I recently joined Sir Terry Leahy in a school in Hertfordshire during the “visit our schools and colleges” week.

Research tells us that where governing bodies are effective, they take a strategic role, as my hon. Friend the Member for South Swindon pointed out, in guiding and supporting the school’s work and challenging further improvement. They should not get drawn into the day-to-day management that is rightly the province of the head teacher and senior leadership team. In the White Paper, “The Importance of Teaching”, we set out a series of 10 key questions for governors to ask to assist them in setting their schools’ strategic direction and holding them to account, such as, “How are we going to raise standards? Have we got the right staff and the right development and reward arrangements? Do we have a sound financial strategy to get good value for money, and robust procurement and financial systems? Does the curriculum provide for and stretch all pupils?” My hon. Friend is right to say that the committee-based decision-making structure is appropriate for our governing bodies. Governing bodies already have the freedom to bring people with particular expertise on to committees as associate members, and they can commission work from people outside the governing bodies.

My hon. Friend referred to the issue of complaints, on which I want briefly to touch. Parents should be able to send their child to school confident that they are receiving the highest possible standard of education. Any problems should be dealt with by professionals in an appropriate and timely manner. There must be mechanisms in place for parents to express their concerns, secure in the knowledge that they will be dealt with quickly, effectively and fairly by all involved. Since September 2003, all schools have been required to have a complaints procedure, and that procedure has to be published. Generally, schools follow a three-part complaints procedure: investigation of a complaint by a staff member; investigation by the head teacher, or by the chair of the governors if it is about the head teacher; and a meeting of a panel of governors where the complaint has still not been resolved. Governing bodies must act in the interests of the children in their school and must rigorously ensure that those who serve on complaints panels conduct a fair and unprejudiced investigation. Challenge is part of the governor’s role, and a pattern of complaints can inform them of incipient problems in the school’s operation, in the same way that correspondence with an MP can alert us to an impending big political issue concerning how our country is run.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole brought out in his speech, in recent years schools have increasingly chosen to collaborate with other schools to achieve more for children and young people. Partnerships have taken a variety of forms, including local area clusters, as well as more formalised arrangements involving shared governance through federation, shared trusts and shared leadership, with heads taking responsibility for leading more than one school. The benefits of those partnerships are clear in extending the breadth and quality of provision; responding better to pupils’ wider needs; widening the impact of the strongest school leaders, teachers and governors; widening opportunities for collaborative professional development; and delivering greater value for money. There is not a single, best collaborative model; instead, schools can consider a variety of models and adapt them to suit local needs and circumstances.

[Mr Wright]

On that point and my earlier remarks about a move away from partnership and collaboration in the school family towards schools going it alone, how does the Minister reconcile his comments with the provisions in the Education Bill, most notably clauses 30 and 31, where the duty to co-operate with the local authority and the duty to have regard to the children and young people’s plan are abolished?

[Mr Gibb]

Legislation is not necessary to require people to co-operate. The best co-operation is engaged in because professionals feel it is the best approach for their school. We need to move away—the Government are moving away—from that tick-box, prescriptive and centralised approach to such issues. We believe that the best partnerships and collaborative arrangements are those that head teachers and governing bodies enter into voluntarily because they know they are in the best interests of their school. We do not want a school to feel bound to find a partner—in a behaviour partnership, for example—simply to fulfil a statutory requirement and to ensure that it has a box ticked when the Ofsted inspection comes.

My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State is always talking about collaboration between professional peers in our school system as a key to school improvement, which is why we are tripling the number of national and local leaders in education. Peer-to-peer mentoring is the key. Professionals working together and spreading best practice is the better way to ensure improvement in our school system, rather than a series of prescriptive statutory requirements for schools and bodies to enter into partnerships with other bodies.

I turn to the general context surrounding the important points that my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral West raised about Calday Grange grammar school. She asked about resolving disputes between head teachers and the governors. All governing bodies have grievance procedures which they must follow to resolve complaints. She then asked how the situation can be resolved if the head teacher is ill, which is the case in this instance. The governing body is the employer, and it has to follow grievance procedures in cases of challenge over employment law. It needs to allow the head teacher to present his case, but he cannot do that, of course, if he is ill. That does not provide a solution but presents the legal framework around the current position.

My hon. Friend asked whether parents should be kept fully informed about what is happening during a dispute. Unfortunately, that is not always possible due to the need for confidentiality in some disputes. She asked whether parents should be allowed to decide the way forward. The answer to that is no, unfortunately. Parental views are represented on the governing body, but the governing body itself is responsible for the school. Of course, a responsible governing body should take parents’ views into account and expedite the resolution of matters, particularly when they are of enormous concern to the parents.

My hon. Friend asked when a governing body can be removed. There are three circumstances in which that can happen: when Ofsted has put the school in special measures; when Ofsted has found that the school requires significant improvement; or when the local authority has issued a warning notice and the governing body has failed to comply with it, or failed to comply satisfactorily. I know that she is concerned about the issue. Lord Hill of Oareford and I have corresponded with the governing body and the local authority about the matter, and we would be happy to discuss it with her further, if she would find that helpful.

In conclusion, I want to take the opportunity once again to pay tribute to our school governors, who are the unsung heroes and heroines of our education system. We should thank them for their work, and I am pleased to do that. I am sure that the increased freedom and autonomy for governing bodies, allied with our reduction of burdens and bureaucracy, will make a huge difference to their work as they seek to raise standards in schools, and will enable better deployment of their time and expertise.

Education Maintenance Allowance

Iain Wright Excerpts

Wednesday 19th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Iain Wright (Hartlepool) (Lab)]

This has been an important and good-quality debate, characterised by knowledge, determination and passion. It has been crowded and busy, with many more Members wishing to catch your eye, Mr Speaker, than have been able to speak. That reflects the importance of the matter and is a sign of the intrinsic unfairness that hon. Members and people outside see in the Government’s decision to scrap EMA. It reflects the number of young people who benefit from it who feel angry, betrayed and let down by the Government’s broken promises.

The Government’s approach to EMA, like their record throughout their education policy so far, is a curious mix of ideological zeal and simply making it up as they go along. On the one hand, their rhetoric is that they are keen to help young people to raise their ambitions and break down social, cultural and economic barriers to help them succeed. The whole House could agree with that, but on the other hand, as hon. Members have exposed time and again in the debate, the Government have disregarded clear evidence and gone back on their promises by scrapping one of the most successful policy interventions for decades in helping to achieve fairness.

[Mr Adrian Bailey (West Bromwich West) (Lab/Co-op)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Mr Wright]

Very briefly, as I am short of time.

[Mr Bailey]

Since EMA was introduced in my local authority area of Sandwell, the number of students getting A-levels has doubled and the number of students from my constituency going to university has increased by 78%. Does my hon. Friend agree that those statistics underline the importance of the matter?

[Mr Wright]

Absolutely, and I shall come in a moment to how young people have benefited from impressive ways of raising attainment, encouraging increased participation and encouraging better behaviour.

I wish to take the House back to the points that the Minister of State, Department for Education, the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr Gibb), made in June. As has been mentioned a number of times, he confirmed categorically in the House that the Government were committed to retaining EMA. A matter of weeks later, they scrapped it. I have to ask, is anybody in charge at the Department for Education? Does anybody have a clue what is going on there? What utter incompetence!

The justification for scrapping EMA keeps moving, from “It hasn’t been successful” to “Its impact has been limited” to “It hasn’t been an effective use of public money.” I suggest that the Government simply fail to recognise the improving life chances that it has provided. It has been a success, as my hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich West (Mr Bailey) has just mentioned and as many other Members have said. It has started to break down the link between participation and success in further education and household income, as my hon. Friends the Members for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) and for Gateshead (Ian Mearns) said.

For far too long, there has been a direct correlation between post-16 participation rates in education and household income. Frankly, moving on from school to the sixth form or an FE college depended not on whether a person was bright enough but on what their parents earned and where they lived. We have started to break that link with EMA. It has been subject to one of the most extensive and robust evaluations of any education policy ever undertaken in England, begun and presided over by my right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Mr Blunkett). He made a fantastic contribution to the debate, and I thank him for the points that he made.

An evaluation by Ipsos MORI concluded that the majority of providers believed that EMA had been effective in reducing the number of NEETs, increasing learners’ attainment and having a positive impact on their attendance and punctuality. It has raised participation by about 5% and attainment by about 3%, and the Government seem to acknowledge that. In a ministerial answer in another place in July, the Under-Secretary Lord Hill acknowledged that

“the monetised benefits of EMA outweighed the costs”.—[Official Report, House of Lords, 13 July 2010; Vol. 720, c. WA118.]

Sadly, the Secretary of State did not acknowledge that today.

We heard from the Secretary of State an elegant, articulate and incorrect argument about the economic picture. We heard about academies, free schools, the English baccalaureate—everything, in fact, except EMA. I seem to recall that it took 19 minutes for those letters to pass his lips. Frankly, we saw alarming mood swings in him. It got to a point where we were really quite concerned about his behaviour. He had a bit of a hissy fit—a bit of a moment. It got to the point where the hon. Member for Wycombe (Steve Baker) said that it was slightly unfair of the Opposition to hold the Government to account.

The Secretary of State rather lost control, just as he has lost control of his Department. Given his comments before the general election and the comments of the Minister of State, the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton, in June, to which I alluded—he committed to retaining EMA—what has the Chancellor done to wreck the economy that means they have to go back on their word? The Secretary of State said this afternoon that to govern is to choose, and that to choose is to prioritise, but it is very clear from his remarks that young people—or children, as he patronisingly referred to 16, 17 and 18-year-olds—are not the Government’s priority.

The Secretary of State made encouraging noises. He acknowledged that greater flexibility is needed in the system, and spoke of individual circumstances, courses that might be selected, rural areas and travel costs. The Opposition are keen to work with him to look at the matter again. However, I was surprised and shocked when in one of his more surreal, bizarre and psychedelic moments, he urged the good people of Hull to vote Liberal Democrat. That is a worrying trend among senior members of the Government. We saw it in Oldham East and Saddleworth. We look forward to the formal merger of the Conservatives and Lib Dems—or is it a takeover of the Conservatives by the Lib Dems?

Moving away from the Secretary of State’s more psychedelic moments, let me go back to his point about flexibility in the system. I agree with him that more flexibility is needed, but by introducing more flexibility, he runs the risk of making the system more complex, more bureaucratic and therefore more expensive.

[Michael Gove]

rose—

[Mr Wright]

I am more than happy to give way to the right hon. Gentleman—I just hope that he does not have a hissy fit. I hope that we see the nice Mr Gove, not the nasty one.

[Michael Gove]

I am enjoying the hon. Gentleman’s speech—I am loving it—but in the four minutes remaining to him, will he answer the question that the right hon. Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham) conspicuously failed to answer? If he acknowledges that fewer people should receive EMA and that less money should be spent, will he say how many fewer people and how much less money? Until he can answer those questions—[Interruption.] I see that the hon. Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan) has his own suggestion. As they say on “University Challenge”, “No conferring; answers please.”

[Mr Wright]

When I was a Minister in the Department for Children, Schools and Families, difficult decisions were made with regard to the £100 bonus that students received. We are prepared to talk about this. We want to ensure that we have the best possible system, but frankly, we cannot reduce a scheme of £600 million to around £50 million without a devastating impact on many communities, which was mentioned many times, including by my hon. Friends the Members for Halton (Derek Twigg) and for Huddersfield.

My hon. Friend the Member for West Ham (Lyn Brown) made a very passionate speech, as she is prone to do in this Chamber, mentioning Newham sixth-form college, which I have visited. My hon. Friend the Member for Wigan (Lisa Nandy), who has always stood up for her constituents and particularly for young people, highlighted the poverty of ambition that the Government’s decision produces. She also said that EMA is a something-for-something initiative, because students sign a contract and are bound by certain conditions in respect of attendance, punctuality and behaviour, which is an important point.

It was nice to see a number of my hon. Friends from the north-east. My hon. Friend the Member for Darlington (Mrs Chapman) mentioned Queen Elizabeth sixth-form college and Darlington college. In a former life, I audited those colleges, for my sins. My hon. Friend the Member for Gateshead told how in his part of the world—I think I audited Gateshead college too—EMA changed the landscape of ambition with regard to staying on, which my right hon. Friend the Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Paul Goggins) also mentioned.

My hon. Friend the Member for Leyton and Wanstead (John Cryer) mentioned the stance of the Liberal Democrats. Although they are taking over the Conservative party—as we heard from the Secretary of State—they have an important decision to make, as they did on tuition fees. The right hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes) said that he is willing to work to ensure that we have the best possible system and that it is adequately funded, as the Opposition are. The Government need to think again. He is quoted in The Times Educational Supplement as saying:

“If what Labour is saying is a call for the government to rethink its plans, I will support that. There’s some careful brokering to do.”

I absolutely agree with that, and I hope that he walks with us through the Lobby tonight.

[Simon Hughes]

The hon. Gentleman knows that I respect him and value his judgment. I have been working with his colleagues openly, and with Ministers, and I think that the Government’s amendment shows, as the Minister will say in a minute, that they are rethinking what they are doing, and that they are committed to trying to come up with a decent replacement. We will see whether we can deliver that, but I will try to do so, and I hope the shadow Minister will work with us.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Wright]

I greatly respect the right hon. Gentleman, but I am disappointed by his response and I hope he does not suffer too much from the spelks in his backside that he will have from sitting on the fence. The good people of Bermondsey and Southwark, and every single young person in the country, deserve better than that, and I hope we can work together in a consensual way.

The sudden scrapping of EMA, together with the trebling of tuition fees and the abolition of the future jobs fund, constitutes a systematic assault on young people. On the day it was announced that the number of unemployed young people had risen again to reach its highest level since records began 20 years ago, it is clear that the Government have nothing to offer young people. Because of the Government’s decisions and actions, there is a risk of a lost generation of unfulfilled potential, undeveloped talent and missed opportunities. We will be paying the social and economic price for this short-sighted decision for decades to come.

I ask the Secretary of State and the Minister not to make the same mistakes they made with Building Schools for the Future and the school sports partnerships. Botched decisions, and a care-free attitude to the facts and the proper procedures of government, have all led to humiliation for the Secretary of State. I say to him, on behalf of 600,000 young people: please listen to advice, think again and retain the education maintenance allowance.

Oral Answers to Questions

Iain Wright Excerpts

Monday 11th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Teather]

One of the points about the pupil premium is the fact that, because it targets the individual child, it has a much better chance of picking up those areas where there are pockets of deprivation, which have been missed by other ways of distributing deprivation funding. It does not matter whether children live in a wealthy area or not; unfortunately, the stats about their parents’ income are still the greatest predictor of how well they will do at school. I think that that is an absolute scandal. Unfortunately, it is the legacy of the previous Labour Government.

[Mr Iain Wright (Hartlepool) (Lab)]

The educational achievement of young people in deprived areas has risen highest for those in receipt of the education maintenance allowance. EMA is undoubtedly helping to break the decades-old link between deprivation, attainment and staying-on rates. That being the case, and given the comments made by the Minister, will she commit to retaining EMA in its current form?

[Sarah Teather]

The hon. Gentleman will be aware that we have made a commitment this year, and he will be perfectly well aware that future spending decisions are a matter for the spending review. He will have to wait with bated breath until next week.

Academies Bill [Lords]

Iain Wright Excerpts

Monday 26th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Redwood]

It cannot be done on that short a time scale—these things will take a bit of time to go through. As soon as schools want to make a proposal, they will have to put in an application, and of course they will notify parents at that time. It is quite possible for them to do so by e-mail or post in the school holidays, and the schools will be back in September, when there will be opportunities for the dialogue to continue.

[Mr Iain Wright (Hartlepool) (Lab)]

The right hon. Gentleman is being most generous in giving way. May I point him to paragraph 7 of the explanatory notes accompanying the Bill? It states:

“The Secretary of State expects that a significant number of Academies will open in September 2010 and for the number to continue to grow each year.”

As the hon. Member for Southport (Dr Pugh) says, there is simply not the time to consult in the way that the right hon. Gentleman suggests.

[Mr Redwood]

I think hon. Members are making obstacles where none need occur. Changes will go speedily only if the local community is happy. As soon as it gets out that a school is considering academy status, the local community will be engaged. There are local newspapers, local websites and all sorts of ways to do so, and the usual school grapevines will be in operation.

Opposition Members protest far too much—we all know they hate freedom, and they do not believe that free people can mobilise themselves in a good cause. I can assure them that people can do so very quickly if need arises. They should not be so afraid of the idea that their local schools might want a bit more freedom and a bit more of their own money to spend. It is dreadful that they believe that all their local schools need so much control from the centre that they want ever more regulation and control from Whitehall of the kind that Labour Governments meted out, and continued or increased control from local education authorities in the hope that one day there will be more Labour authorities to exercise it.

Surely it is high time that we set free the schools that wish to be set free. I can assure the Committee that should groups of parents not wish a change to academy status to happen, they will mobilise quickly and democracy will work. It is still alive and kicking.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Gibb]

It is possible for an academy order to be issued in September, while the details of the funding agreement are still being negotiated. These things are very complicated, and it might take several weeks after the academy order is issued before the funding agreement is signed, so the consultation process can continue after the academy order has been issued.

[Mr Iain Wright]

We really need clarity on this very important point. As I mentioned earlier, paragraph 7 of the explanatory notes states:

“The Secretary of State expects that a significant number of Academies will open in September 2010”.

Is the Minister now suggesting that academies will open without a funding agreement being in place?

[Mr Gibb]

The school can continue with an academy order made. That is the point. The academy order can be made in September, but the funding agreement might take several additional weeks afterwards—[Interruption.] No, the school will be open; children will be able to attend a school and an academy order will have been made.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dan Rogerson]

I apologise to you, Mr Hoyle, and to the Committee for not being here for the start of the debate on this group of amendments. I was startled by the efficiency and economy with which the Committee dealt with the previous one.

I welcome the fact that the hon. Member for Hemsworth (Jon Trickett) has raised this issue. It is right that people should look to their local schools for more than the education of young people—or even the education of people throughout their lives. In constituencies such as mine, the rural primary schools are at the heart of the small villages and offer much in terms of facilities and a focal point for much of what happens in the community. In the towns and bigger urban areas, secondary schools offer a similar facility, as my hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth South (Mr Hancock) said. I completely understand the concerns that the hon. Member for Hemsworth has raised, on behalf of his constituents and people across the country watching this debate, about facilities that they are accustomed to having access to, for a whole range of purposes, perhaps being affected.

I do not have an academy in my constituency, so I bow to the experience of hon. Members who do as to how academies can continue to be at the heart of their communities. However, I would hope that we could have a response from the Minister to the issues raised by the hon. Member for Hemsworth, to reassure people that there will be something in the funding agreement—as we have heard, Government spokespeople in the other place suggested that that would be the way forward—if not in the Bill itself, to ensure that there is a duty on those schools to continue to engage with their local communities.

We have provision in the Bill not just for the transition of existing maintained schools into academies, but for new schools. We have already had a debate about whether some capital resource might be available to help those schools get under way. I hope that that could be kept to a minimum and that where people come forward wishing to provide those services, they would bring with them the determination to provide such facilities themselves. However, if there is a drawdown of money from the state system, as it were, the relevant duties and responsibilities must lie with those people, because they will be wanting to make a contribution to the education of young people in their communities, and I would hope that they should also be at the heart of those communities.

Amendment 54 seeks to place that commitment in the Bill, particularly with regard to facilities. I hesitate to get into a debate on the new clause standing in my name, which my hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth South mentioned—we may reach it this evening; I am not sure—but there are related issues, which I hope you will permit me to mention, Mr Hoyle, that go wider than just the facilities. My hon. Friend referred to social and community cohesion, on which I hope the Minister will have had a chance to reflect.

With regard to the use of the facilities that the hon. Member for Hemsworth has set out in his amendment, there is a concern that if schools that are considering going down that route are to be held in law to be responsible for providing them following a change, they might seek to reduce such facilities or run them down. I hope that they would not, because all schools, whether they are undergoing the process or not, will want to be at the heart of their communities. However, behind the amendment is a concern that a school might wish to restrict access a little. My concern is that accepting the amendment as drafted, with all the caveats that the hon. Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker) will no doubt raise on Report—perhaps I can cut in now, before we get there—will mean that schools would be encouraged to run down the community activities that they offer, because they would want to keep to a minimum what they would have to do afterwards. The amendment might therefore have the opposite effect.

Also, the courts would presumably then become the final arbiter of whether a school was keeping its swimming pool open—if it had a swimming pool—for the same number of hours as it had been a little while ago. We could have schools repeatedly going back to court. I know that that is not the intention of the hon. Member for Hemsworth. I am merely saying that his amendment is a chance to probe the Minister’s intentions and insist that, wherever possible, we should have as much in the guidelines or the funding agreement, which is probably the way to do things, to reassure people that schools will continue to be at the heart of their communities, no matter how they receive their state funding—whether through a maintained set-up or the newer, academies option.

I hope that the Minister will indicate his support for that, but also place on record the fact that it will apply to any new academies, as well as to those formed by existing schools transferring across.

[Mr Iain Wright]

May I begin by saying what a pleasure it is to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hoyle?

I will be brief, because my hon. Friend the Member for Hemsworth (Jon Trickett) and the hon. Members for Portsmouth South (Mr Hancock) and for North Cornwall (Dan Rogerson) have said all that needs to be said about amendment 54. I welcome the amendment, which was tabled by my hon. Friend. He has rightly expressed the concern about the risk that community facilities—provision that could and should be used by partnering schools or the wider community—could be stopped as a result of an academy order. All three hon. Members who have spoken in this debate have said how important such facilities are to social cohesion.

A further point is that in times when public finances are tight, the potential saving from having extended schools with those provisions is immense. There could be savings to the NHS, from having that social network in place, to the Home Office and police budgets, from early intervention, or to the social care budget. Those savings could be huge, and they all stem from the idea of an extended school that opens out into the community, providing an open and collaborative range of offers. However, there is nothing in the Bill that might safeguard that. I am concerned about that, which is why I welcome the amendment. I know that it is a probing amendment, as my hon. Friend said. However, I hope that the Minister can reassure the Committee that what is in the Bill will safeguard what is available for the community, because the whole of society can benefit as a result.

[Mr Gibb]

Amendment 54 seeks to ensure that each academy order contains provisions that make the school’s facilities available for community use once the school has converted to an academy. We agree on the importance of schools being at the heart of their communities. We would want to encourage the community use of school facilities. That is why the model funding agreement, which has been made available in the Libraries of both Houses and on the Department’s website, requires academies

“to be at the heart of their communities and to share their facilities with other schools and the wider community”.

That could include a wide range of initiatives—for example, making the school’s sports facilities available for local groups to use, offering adult education after hours, and engaging staff in outreach work across other local schools. It is clear from the provisions in academy arrangements that we are committed to academies being a central resource to their local communities. That is also borne out by our expectation that all outstanding schools commit in principle to working in partnership with a weaker school, as part of their applications to become academies.

However, it would not be appropriate for every academy order to make such provision. Academy orders are intended to be the documents that confirm a school’s conversion, and will contain key pieces of information pertinent to the conversion, depending on the circumstances of each school. We believe that the place to impose obligations on an academy is through the academy arrangements, in either the funding agreement or the terms and conditions of grant. That is consistent with the approach of the previous Government.

The hon. Member for Hemsworth (Jon Trickett) talked about the gym and the sports facilities in his local school, and asked whether it could be made a requirement that there should be no less provision to the community than existed at the date of the transfer. He wanted to put that in the Bill, which I have explained would be excessive. He also raised the issue of the fees charged for those sports facilities. Again, his fear is that an academy would raise those fees in order to raise further funds for the academy or the school. However, all the issues that he has raised are issues for the funding agreement. There is no reason why those facilities cannot continue. If the issue is shared facilities between the school and the local authority, these will be subject to discussion as part of the conversion process. On the wider issue of charging, charging that is allowed is limited, as he knows, and will be equivalent to the money that maintained schools are also entitled to raise for out-of-hours-type activities.

I suppose that the issue at the back of the hon. Gentleman’s mind is the concern that somehow academies will be less community-minded than the maintained schools that they replace—that somehow they will gouge out those facilities used by local residents or the out-of-hours evening classes that they attend. I see no evidence from the academies that I have visited around the country that that is their attitude. They are just as much a part of the community as the maintained schools that they are replacing.

The hon. Gentleman should be assured, certainly on the basis of the statements that I am now making to the Committee, that it is not the Government’s intention that academies should become islands unto themselves, charging the maximum that they can to raise funds for their facilities. They will continue to be part of the community, concerned about the community, and wanting to share their facilities with the community.

I want to turn now to the points raised tangentially by my hon. Friends the Members for Portsmouth South (Mr Hancock) and for North Cornwall (Dan Rogerson). They both raised the issue of community cohesion. It is our view that the funding agreement will already include that requirement, using the phrase that I have just read out about being at the heart of the community and sharing facilities with the community. I am also able to help my hon. Friends by adding to the funding agreement an explicit requirement that academies will be required to be at the heart of their communities, to promote community cohesion and to share their facilities with other schools and the wider community. I hope that, in the light of those few words and the arguments that I put forward earlier, the hon. Member for Hemsworth will withdraw his amendment, which he described as a probing amendment.

[Jon Trickett]

I am grateful to the Minister for the way in which he has presented his case to the Committee, and I do not wish to press the amendment to a vote. He has had the opportunity to put the Government’s views on record, and they will no doubt form part of any future debate when academies begin to operate. I predict, however, that the monitoring system he is introducing will be more expensive, more bureaucratic and more top-down than the present system of accountability of schools to their local communities through the local authorities, and that is deeply regrettable. With that, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

[Mr Iain Wright]

I beg to move amendment 79, page 4, line 8, at end add—

‘(8) Before making an Academy order in respect of a maintained school under this section, the Secretary of State shall consult with—

(a) the local authority,

(b) any other local authority who would in his opinion be affected by the making of an Academy order,

(c) teachers and other staff at the school and their representatives,

(d) parents and pupils of the school and the other schools in the community, and

(e) such other persons as the Secretary of State considers appropriate.’.

[The Chairman of Ways and Means]

With this it will be convenient to discuss new clause 7—Social cohesion—

(1) Before a school makes an application for an Academy order or an Academy arrangement with an additional school the relevant local authority must be asked to assess the impact of Academy status on—

(a) admissions in the local authority area where the school is situated;

(b) funding between all publicly funded schools in the local authority area where the school is situated; and

(c) social cohesion in the local authority area where the school is situated.

(2) The impact assessment in subsection (1) should be made with regard to any existing policies the local authority or local schools forum have in relation to (a), (b) and (c).

(3) Before making an Academy order or an Academy arrangement with an additional school the Secretary of State must have regard to the impact assessment in subsection (1) made by the local authority.’.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Wright]

With this amendment and new clause 7, we return to a subject that we have discussed time and again in this brief Committee stage. One of the most fundamental weaknesses of the entire Bill is its wholly inadequate provision for consultation. Clause 4 sets out the process for the Secretary of State to consider and approve an academy order. It also sets out the criteria by which an application may be considered. The two criteria are that the governing body has applied or that the school is eligible for intervention. This provides no role for the local community or for parents to ask for intervention, however. Time and again this afternoon, the point has been raised about the lack of consultation for local stakeholders, especially parents. We believe that local authorities, communities, teachers, trade unionists and, most importantly, parents should have a role in calling for intervention.

Inherent in the Bill is a massive risk of creating a two-tier system that will divide rather than unite communities, and that will set deprived communities against affluent neighbourhoods. As I said in Committee last week, the Bill could ensure that the most important relationship was between the individual school and the Secretary of State, rather than between the school and its local community.

We have just been discussing amendment 54. One of my concerns is that the Bill, as it stands, is a highly centralising piece of legislation whose focus is firmly on the school and the Secretary of State, rather than on the wider area. There is also a risk that the Secretary of State intends to use the freedoms that academies allow to give only successful, prosperous schools the flexibility and resources to thrive. Those freedoms could well be provided at the expense of the vast majority of schools, which could face cuts to support services and experience severe disruption. The fragmentation of our schools system would be a real step backwards for social progress and social cohesion.

Amendment 79 would ensure that, before making an academy order in respect of a maintained school, the Secretary of State would be obliged to consult the local authority, teachers and other staff at the school, parents and pupils of the school and the other schools in the community, and any other such persons who are considered appropriate. In addition, he would have to consult other local authorities that might be affected by an academy order. This is most common, although not exclusively so, in London, where pupils in a particular school may be drawn from a wide variety of local authorities. Demand for places at a school in a particular local authority, especially a popular school, can affect the demand, and hence the viability, of schools in other boroughs. Surely the Minister accepts that it is right for those affected local authorities to be consulted as well. Proposed new subsection 8(b) would ensure that any other local authority that might be affected by the making of an academy order was consulted. For those reasons, we believe that amendment 79 offers an important means of injecting more challenge, scrutiny and consultation into the proposed legislation.

We believe strongly that local authorities have a strong role to play in helping every child to succeed. They do not, and should not, run schools, but they can provide a strategic function, and commission provision across an area that is relevant, suitable and in keeping with the local authority’s vision for the shape of their economy. Local authorities can ensure that local services are of a high quality and meet the needs, ambitions and aspirations of children and young people. The actions or, at times, inactions of local authorities can also be held to account by local people in a truly democratic fashion, as a means of securing effective, efficient and fair local public services.

We on the Labour Benches and, I suspect, some on the Government Benches, believe that local authorities are best placed to facilitate partnerships across different schools and drive forward improvement and rising standards. I said “I suspect”, but it is fair to say that all Liberal Democrats subscribe to that view. I quote page 37 of their 2010 general election manifesto, which states:

“Local authorities will not run schools, but will have a central and strategic role, including responsibility for oversight of school performance and fair admissions. They will be expected to intervene where school leadership or performance is weak.”

We can all agree with that sentiment. I can more or less agree, too, with the next bullet point in their manifesto:

“We will ensure a level playing field for admissions and funding and replace Academies with our own model of ‘Sponsor-Managed Schools’. These schools will be commissioned by and accountable to local authorities and not Whitehall”.

That is an important commitment, on which every Liberal Democrat Member of Parliament was returned to the House. It is important that the Committee has the opportunity to vote on the matter, so that Liberal Democrat Members can support their manifesto commitments to a level playing field on admissions and funding and on social cohesion. On that basis, I give notice that I want to test the Committee’s opinion with regard to new clause 7.

[Ian Swales (Redcar) (LD)]

What did the hon. Gentleman think about the provisions under discussion when the Labour Government introduced academies? As far as I know, none of the provisions apply to the current academy system.

[Mr Wright]

I do not want to return to the Second Reading debate, but the purpose and definition of academies under the Bill differ fundamentally from those of the academies introduced by the Labour Government. We gave freedoms and flexibilities to poorly performing schools in deprived areas. The Bill is a completely different kettle of fish, and I think that the hon. Gentleman agrees with me.

Under new clause 7, before a school can make an application for an academy order—or arrangement with a free school—local authorities would be asked to assess the impact of such an order or arrangement on admissions, the funding between all state-funded schools and social cohesion in an area. As the hon. Member for North Cornwall (Dan Rogerson) ably articulated, social cohesion with regard to education is vital. There is a huge risk inherent in the Bill that social cohesion will be threatened and compromised. The new clause addresses that.

[Andrew George (St Ives) (LD)]

The hon. Gentleman makes a strong case, referring to Liberal Democrat party policy. In new clause 7(1)(a), he refers to the admissions policy and the impact on admissions to schools. Were he successful in getting the new clause accepted, what would he envisage as the best solution in circumstances in which, inevitably, parents will be disgruntled that their child is unable to gain admission to a local school?

[Mr Wright]

In my constituency, parents want to get their children into certain popular schools. It is important that the local authority sets out a clear procedure by which admissions will be considered, that there is a good appeals process, and that the schools adjudicator is part of that process. It is important that local authorities are in the driving seat: not running schools, but with borough-wide thinking on admissions. The approach has worked well and can continue to do so.

Earlier today, my right hon. Friend the shadow Secretary of State for Education and the shadow Schools Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker) wrote to every Liberal Democrat Member, expressing the wish that we work together to amend and improve the Bill by supporting new clause 7. If Liberal Democrat Members feel that they must support the Bill as a whole in keeping with the coalition agreement, I can understand and respect their position, but I hope that there can be cross-party support for new clause 7.

[Dan Rogerson]

How could I resist the opportunity to respond to the hon. Member for Hartlepool (Mr Wright), who has thrown his glove across the Floor of the House to land at my feet?

The hon. Gentleman is obviously pining for the day on which there is a Liberal Democrat majority Government—[Interruption.] I look forward to working with the hon. Gentleman. Given the way in which his party has conducted itself in opposition, he and his hon. Friends may well be working towards such an arrangement even now.

Let me say, in all seriousness, that the hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to suggest that if the Liberal Democrats had been the majority party, we would have proceeded with the sponsor-managed schools option. However, we are not in that position. As the hon. Gentleman pointed out, we are in a coalition Government with a coalition agreement, and it is clear that some policies emanate from one partner in the coalition and some from the other. That is the way it works in coalition agreements all over the world, in countries where arrangements such as this are far more common than they have been in the United Kingdom, at least for several decades.

I do not think that academies are the answer. I did not think that they were the answer when the hon. Gentleman’s party was in charge of the policy, and I do not think that they will necessarily be the answer for all schools now. However, following the coalition agreement, the Bill contains a series of provisions enabling communities, where there is a will, to allow schools to adopt academy status. It remains to be seen how many will take up the option and what use they will make of it. Amendments were made in another place, notably with regard to the provision of additional schools—which I know concerned the hon. Gentleman in earlier debates—and assessments of the impact on the surrounding area.

Consultation is vital. We have already engaged in a full debate on that issue, and I shall not go over the ground again. I will say, however, that the hon. Gentleman spoke of commitments by a political party in a set of circumstances prior to a coalition agreement which has been published and is available for everyone to examine and discuss. Believe me, people in my constituency and others have been discussing it, and we have had many debates on it. That should not come as a surprise to the hon. Gentleman.

I had the honour of serving in the last Parliament, when the hon. Gentleman stood at the Government Dispatch Box ably standing up for—it must be said—the sometimes slightly dodgy policies that his party was producing. He must have seen us sitting on the Opposition Benches below the Gangway—where his hon. Friend the Member for Gateshead (Ian Mearns) is sitting now—talking to some of his hon. Friends who were then sitting on this side of the Committee. They were sorely tempted to join us. Lord McAvoy, as he now is, would have been there, casting his eye over Labour Members and making sure that that did not happen.

It could be said that we are now in similar circumstances in terms of the way in which this place works, but it can only work, and a Government can only work, when there is an agreed programme. We have an agreed programme, and the Government are proceeding with it. However, I am pleased that the Minister was willing to listen—as was his noble Friend Lord Hill—to Members of our party and our side of the coalition, and to other noble Lords and hon. Members, and to make provision to allay some of the concerns that have been raised.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Gibb]

My hon. Friend will know that the admissions code will apply just as much to academies as to maintained schools, that the admissions appeals code will also apply just as much to academies as to maintained schools and that the co-ordination arrangements will apply too. So the local authorities will hold the ring on admissions in the same way as they do at the moment.

[Mr Iain Wright]

I may be pre-empting what the Minister is going to say. He has been talking about existing maintained schools converting to an academy, using the phrase “as is” and he mentioned that schools would have the same head, the same estate and so on. New clause 7(1) states:

“Before a school makes an application for an Academy order or”—

this is the point on which I seek clarification—

“an Academy arrangement with an additional school”.

That refers to a free school. Will the existing arrangements still apply in respect of a free school too? Could the Minister provide clarity on that?

[Mr Gibb]

I shall seek to do that during the rest of my speech. If I do not get round to the hon. Gentleman’s point, I shall write to him.

We believe that the impact of an increase in academies and the freedoms they provide will lead to improvements in standards across the education sector as the best heads and the best schools drive improvements and expertise. The noble Lords were concerned about schools changing their age range and the Bill was amended to allay those concerns. Subsection (4) of clause 9 makes it clear than when a maintained school becomes an academy under the current school closure processes, further to the Education and Inspections Act 2006 and not further to an academy order, when the age range is not like-for-like, the school would be classed as an additional school, so the Secretary of State would be required to evaluate the impact. That would include, for example, an academy created as a result of the amalgamation of two or more schools or an 11-to-18 academy that replaced an 11-to-16 maintained school, if that involved a closure rather than a conversion. Any school wishing to add a sixth form would need to follow the relevant statutory provisions.

The answer to the question whether the admissions code and the appeals code will apply to free schools, too, is yes, it will. The problem with the Minister’s opening remarks—

[Mr Wright]

I’m not the Minister any more.

[Mr Gibb]

Sorry, the shadow Minister. It is all very new.

The problem with the shadow Minister’s speech in moving the amendment was that it was written, I think, before he heard of the Government’s intention to put in the funding agreement an explicit requirement to promote community cohesion. On top of that, it already requires academies to be at the heart of the community. He cited the Liberal Democrat manifesto commitment that local authorities will not run schools. That is a view common throughout the coalition and we also agree that local authorities should be the champion of parents and pupils, championing school improvement and challenging rather than defending underperforming schools. In an old politics kind of way, he is trying to drive a wedge into fissures in the coalition where no fissures exist—and he is doing so unsuccessfully.

The point made by the hon. Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker) about excluded pupils is wrong. He alleged that the funding for an excluded pupil stays with the academy. The funding follows the pupil when the pupil is excluded and that is a requirement in the academy agreement.

With those few words, I hope that I have persuaded Opposition Members and those elsewhere to withdraw their amendments.

[Mr Iain Wright]

I apologise to the Minister on the subject of the concession that he has made on social cohesion and community cohesion in the funding agreement. I had meant to mention that, but I was wrapped up in helping Liberal Democrats. I apologise; that is a welcome concession.

The hon. Member for North Cornwall (Dan Rogerson) went so far in tempting me to think that he does not agree with academies, but then he pulled back considerably. He mentioned, rightly, that coalition—like all politics—is a question of compromise and negotiation, but I think that the Liberal Democrats are getting a bit of a raw deal in the coalition agreement when it comes to education policy. I will readily admit that today there has been the announcement on school funding and the pupil premium and I am pleased to see the Minister of State, the hon. Member for Brent Central (Sarah Teather), on the Treasury Bench. I pay tribute to her for pushing that forward.

In every other sense, the emphasis has been on Conservative party policy, with an emphasis on free markets. There has been a rush to the markets and a lack of consultation with and consideration for the wider community that is at odds with what the Liberal Democrats want. I shall still provide the hon. Member for North Cornwall and his hon. Friends, who seem readily poised to join us in the appropriate Lobby, with the opportunity to ensure that the commitments that were made in the Liberal Democrat manifesto in the general election, only a matter of weeks ago, can still be fulfilled.

I am not content with the Minister’s explanations in terms of new clause 7. I think it is very important and I will want to press that to a vote, but I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 4 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 5 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 16

Pre-commencement applications etc

Question put, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

Academies Bill [Lords]

Iain Wright Excerpts

Thursday 22nd July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Vernon Coaker]

I agree very much with the Minister that this has been an excellent, high-quality debate. There were many contributions, and may I begin by apologising to the hon. Member for South Basildon and East Thurrock (Stephen Metcalfe) for not being present for his maiden speech? I understand, however, that it was excellent, and I am sure he will be a worthy replacement for a friend of ours, Angela Smith. I wish him well in Parliament, and we look forward to hearing further contributions from him.

I was not quite sure whether the contribution of the hon. Member for Penrith and The Border (Rory Stewart) was a second maiden speech or a maiden, but although he did not agree with me, I still thought it was a reasonable speech, if that makes sense. [Interruption.] No, I say in all sincerity that it was a good speech. Tribute was paid to his predecessor, David Maclean, by the hon. Member for Portsmouth South (Mr Hancock), and we all had great admiration for the way in which he battled against some of the difficulties he faced. I am sure the new hon. Member for Penrith and The Border will be a worthy addition to the House and I wish him well.

I want to pay tribute to some of the other speeches made, particularly that by my hon. Friend the Member for North West Durham (Pat Glass). Many Members have paid tribute to her contribution. Her speech was not only very well informed, but very moving. The power of the stories that Members can bring to the House from our experience as professionals outside it makes a huge difference, and there was great credibility in what she said and we all learned from her remarks. I am sure we will continue to benefit from her contributions as she pursues her parliamentary career. I also thank the hon. Member for Croydon Central (Gavin Barwell) for his generous remarks about my approach and for the conversations we have had about many of the matters we have been discussing today.

I am also very grateful to the Minister for his reply. It is clear that the Government are thinking of making a number of significant changes—I do not want to use the word “concessions” as that makes it sound as if there was a battle—on the issue under discussion as a consequence not only of this debate, but of contributions outside the Chamber. I have to say that some of the concessions—the changes—that are now being made ought to have been made before. I am not trying to be churlish; I am saying that because these are such important matters. As the Chair of the Select Committee said, the evidence base for the Bill—the impact assessment and the equalities impact assessment—really is not good enough, given the Bill’s importance. These are essential documents that go alongside a Government Bill. I say to the Minister and his colleagues that they are extremely important documents because they are the evidence base on which Government legislation is supposed to be based. The Chair of the Select Committee was harsher than I was, but I must say that those documents did leave quite a bit to be desired.

We are all pleased to hear about the Green Paper, the welcome review of SEN funding for academies, and the Minister’s commitment to examine the role of local authorities and to ensure that their role is properly recognised in the system as things progress. There was also a specific recognition of one of the points raised. I am not saying that this happened because of the point I raised, but I did say that the model funding agreement that had been published did not contain a requirement for a teacher in the academies to be responsible for children in care, and the Minister responded by saying that that will be changed. That, too, is very welcome.

It would be churlish of me not to say that significant change has been made as we have progressed through our consideration of the Bill, and that is very welcome. The amendment seeks to push the Government to recognise that important problems remain in how this structure has been set up. The definition of low incidence SEN and low incidence disability is fundamental to the Bill, but we are passing a piece of legislation that contains no definition of that.

As Members from across the House have said, that is a recipe for confusion, litigation and lawyers, because how is a local authority, an academy or whoever supposed to know whether they are meeting the requirements of the legislation, given that we currently have no criteria for determining that? I know that the Minister has given a commitment for this to be contained in codes of practice and in other places. In the spirit of trying to be helpful, may I say that it is essential that that kind of clarity is provided in respect of legislation, particularly with something that is such a key part of the Bill? I know that he will take that on board and take it forward.

The Minister has tried to address the other aspect of what our amendment was trying to ensure, but confusion remains as to what the funding will mean for individual schools and what it will mean for the amount of funding that is left for local authorities in terms of that central provision, which will be essential. Confusion also remains about the co-ordinating role in order to ensure that all of our young people get the support that they need. How the Secretary of State is supposed to do that from the centre right down to school level is a real problem, given that the Young People’s Learning Agency is supposed to be the vehicle by which academies are held to account. The YPLA is a new body, and it has no experience of dealing with special needs or of this provision. So to rely upon it as the vehicle or body that will try to ensure that the Secretary of State is informed about whether an academy is appropriately using the money that it gets to support children with SEN is simply a wish rather than something that the Government have evidence to demonstrate will actually work.

This has been a hugely important debate, and the Government have made some significant concessions. It is a shame that we cannot amend the Bill to give it the legislative and statutory force necessary to give all of us the reassurance that we need. However, given the Minister’s concessions, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 2 ordered to stand part of the Bill.



Clause 7

Transfer of school surpluses

[Mr Iain Wright (Hartlepool) (Lab)]

I beg to move amendment 61, page 5, line 22, leave out from ‘proprietor’ to end of line 23 and insert ‘to appeal to a Local Commissioner’.

[The First Deputy Chairman]

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following: amendment 62, page 5, line 25, leave out ‘review’ and insert ‘appeal’.

Amendment 63, page 5, line 26, leave out ‘review’ and insert ‘appeal’.

Amendment 64, page 5, line 43, at end insert—

‘“Local Commissioner” has the meaning given by section 23 of the Local Government Act 1974.’.

[Mr Wright]

I begin by paying tribute to the Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, my hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr Hayes). I class him as a good friend. He is a kind and courteous man and I am sure that my daughter Hattie will be very pleased that she has been mentioned in the House again. He is more than welcome to join us for “Toy Story 3”—indeed, I see him as the Buzz Lightyear of the coalition Government. To infinity and beyond!

May I clarify a point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Gateshead (Ian Mearns), who was in the Chamber assiduously this afternoon, until I got up, when he left? He mentioned that his area produces angels, and in many respects he is right—Gateshead is a fantastic place—but I think that he was referring to the angel of the north, which is a strong and proud icon of our region of the north-east, and I should point out to the Committee that the angel of the north was fabricated in Hartlepool. That is an important point.

I shall be brief, because there is not a lot of time left and there is a lot of work still to do. It was very important that we had considerable debates on Building Schools for the Future and on special educational needs. Clause 7 requires that where the Secretary of State approves a maintained school’s application to become an academy, the local authority must determine whether, immediately before the conversion date, the school has a surplus and, if so, the amount of the surplus. Once that is done, the local authority must pay the surplus over to the proprietor of the academy.

Subsection (4) states that regulations may be brought forward on how the payment of any identified surplus could be made and subsection (5) lists what those regulations can include. An important part of those regulations would be the manner in which the proprietor of the academy can apply to the Secretary of State for a review of the determinations. I argued in Committee last night that the nature of the Bill is to force schools to consider that their most important relationship is not with local parents or pupils but with the Secretary of State.

This is a centralising Bill that concentrates power and decisions into the office of the Secretary of State. The Opposition think that there should be more independence from Whitehall and more power for local people, which could include the proprietor of the academy. On that basis, amendment 61 would replace the idea of the proprietor going directly to the Secretary of State to ask for a review and allow the owner of the new academy to appeal to a local commissioner.

Amendment 64 would make it clear that the term “local commissioner” has the same meaning as that given by section 23 of the Local Government Act 1974, which essentially means the local government ombudsman. That is a well-recognised route for conducting investigations into local matters and gives a degree of impartiality and independence because the local commissioners are appointed by the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government. We think that the Secretary of State for Education, under the provisions in the Bill, is responsible for a number of things, namely entering into an academy arrangement, making an academy order and reviewing the transfer of school circumstances among other things. There does not seem to be any effective challenge to the single authority of the Secretary of State, which is one reason why we have tabled the amendments.

The inclusion of the word “review” is also somewhat vague and does not give reassurance and confidence to the proprietor of the academy, or to anybody else for that matter, that a proper procedure will be followed. Amendments 62 and 63 would strengthen the wording of the Bill by leaving out the word “review” and inserting the word “appeal”, which gives a sense, in our opinion, that a proper and transparent process must be adhered to. The amendments would not increase any bureaucratic burden on any interested party, but they would provide a degree of certainty and reassurance for stakeholders, particularly the proprietor of the new academy. For that reason, I am interested to hear what the Minister has to say about the amendments, and I commend them to the Committee.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Tim Loughton)]

It is a pleasure to participate in this debate. These four amendments have been grouped together because they concern the appeal procedure. It is our policy that a maintained school that converts to academy status should take with it any funds that it has accumulated in previous years. I do not think that that is news to the shadow Minister. Schools might have earmarked such funds for particular purposes and we would not want them to be prevented from carrying out their plans as a consequence of their conversion to academy status. The Bill therefore makes provision for that and for an academy to appeal to the Secretary of State, as we see fit, where it believes that the local authority has wrongly calculated the appropriate amount.

The Opposition’s amendments would change the whole appeal process so that the academy would appeal to the local government ombudsman rather than the Secretary of State. I think the shadow Minister characterised the measure as being centralising rather than localising, but we do not believe that what the Opposition suggest is appropriate. We have published draft regulations to enable hon. Members to see the Government’s intentions in this regard. The draft regulations state that the local authority would have to determine, within three months of the conversion date, whether the school had a surplus immediately prior to the conversion date and, if so, the level of that surplus. That is consistent with the usual period for finalising local authority accounts at the end of the financial year and should give sufficient time to calculate accruals and commitments accurately. If the academy’s proprietor did not agree with the determination, they would have one month from being informed of the determination to apply to the Secretary of State for a review. On receiving such an application, the Secretary of State would have three months in which to determine whether the school had a surplus and, if so, the amount of that surplus, and to inform the academy’s proprietor and the local authority of those determinations.

If there has been a review, the local authority must pay over any surplus within a month of being informed of the Secretary of State’s determination. If there is no review, the authority would have to pay over any surplus within one month of either the proprietor informing the authority that they agreed with the determination or at the end of the period in which the proprietor may apply for review—whichever is earlier. That is very clear.

[Mr Wright]

Will the Minister clarify something? If a decision is made by the Secretary of State following a review, would the proprietor of the academy have a right to appeal that decision?

[Tim Loughton]

If the hon. Gentleman bears with me, there is a further explanation that might satisfy him.

Decisions regarding financial disputes of this kind should rest with the Secretary of State, as they do currently. The Secretary of State is responsible for making a decision when the local authority and schools forum disagree about the operation of the minimum funding guarantee or about the level of central expenditure retained by the local authority in the schools budget. The Secretary of State is also able to approve additional arrangements when local authorities request to have school finance regulations disapplied and so is well used to evaluating these issues.

What is proposed would be an unnecessary extension of the role of the local government ombudsman, whose role is to deal with complaints from members of the public about local authorities rather than to deal with disputes between two publicly funded bodies about the detail of financial accounts. We do not think it appropriate for that role to lie with the ombudsman. Dealing with that sort of dispute is already an established part of the Secretary of State’s role. On that basis, we do not think that the amendments are necessary and I urge the hon. Gentleman to withdraw the amendment

[Mr Wright]

I thank the Minister for clarifying the situation, but I still am not entirely certain about the right to appeal. If a review had taken place and the proprietor was still unhappy with the situation, would they be able to appeal again to the Secretary of State or an independent body? We have suggested that they could appeal to the local government ombudsman, but there could be other routes; we are quite flexible about that. Will the Minister clarify that?

[Tim Loughton]

I thought I had made this clear, but obviously I have not. The Secretary of State’s decision is final, so the Secretary of State will be the final arbiter.

[Mr Wright]

I thank the Minister for confirming that. My fundamental concern about this aspect of the Bill remains the same, namely that it seems to be a very centralising Bill. It diverts the relationship away from a school thinking about local stakeholders, and having a good, constructive partnership and collaborative arrangement with local people, pupils, staff and so on, and towards having a direct relationship with the Secretary of State. I thought that was contrary to what the coalition Government would want to do with regard to empowering local people. In that respect, I remain unhappy.

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)]

Is there not a problem with the lack of accountability of the Secretary of State? The Secretary of State effectively approves the transfer of funds between the local authority and the academy, in one way or another. If there is a dispute, it is resolved by the Secretary of State, who gave his approval in the first place. There is no obvious transparency in the system, as far as the Secretary of State is concerned, and it is not obvious where one goes if either party simply does not accept the Secretary of State’s decision.

[Mr Wright]

I certainly agree with my hon. Friend. The Secretary of State has made it clear that he is keen to expand academies as quickly as possible, so he has a vested interest in making sure that that happens. Then there is the decision on the transfer of surpluses; as my hon. Friend says, the Secretary of State is the final judge and jury on that issue. There is an inherent conflict of interest between various bodies, and I am concerned about that. There is a general concern about the complete lack of consultation with local stakeholders on the provisions, and I remain concerned about that.

[Tim Loughton]

To respond to the point made by the hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn), there are many areas of schools business where the final decision will remain with the Secretary of State, and that is proper, but remember that the Secretary of State needs to have regard not just to the future and the financial viability of academies, but to the sustainability of other schools, which will continue to be administered through local education authorities. The Secretary of State is interested not just in academies, but in all schools.

[Mr Wright]

I thank the Minister for his contribution. I am keen for him to intervene again, because I still think that the word “review” is very vague. It does not set out in any degree what the process would be, so that the proprietor of the academy could be reassured that appropriate processes had taken place. Our amendments 62 and 63 would tighten up the language of the Bill. They would ensure that there was not a review, to use that broad, somewhat ambiguous word, but an appeal. That would help to clarify certain matters in the Bill. I would be happy for the Minister to respond further on that point.

[Dan Rogerson]

I am intrigued by this role reversal: the hon. Gentleman is standing up for the proprietor of the academy against the local authority in this instance. It seems a reversal of the way in which the arguments have gone throughout the day. It strikes me that we are talking about a one-off instance, not a continuing relationship. Once the decision has been made, the academy is in the area, doing things with the local community. On his point about the provisions being a centralising measure, what he describes may not happen in every case, and the measure is a one-off.

[Mr Wright]

The hon. Gentleman makes a fair and reasonable point. I am anxious to proceed with business; I want to put it on the record that that is one of the reasons why my hon. Friend the Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker) and I did not press amendment 71 to a vote. I understand what the Minister is saying, but I still think that this is a centralising Bill. The comments of the hon. Member for North Cornwall (Dan Rogerson) put the matter in a wider context. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

[Mr Iain Wright]

I beg to move amendment 76, page 5, line 34, leave out from ‘time’ to end of line 36 and insert

‘after deducting from any amount made available by a local authority to the school’s governing body (under section 50 of SSFA 1998 or otherwise) that has not been spent by the governing body or the headteacher, all existing and contingent liabilities not transferring to the Academy under a property transfer scheme (including any liabilities of the local authority incurred on behalf of the school), there is a net amount available.’.

[The First Deputy Chairman]

With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment 66, in clause 8, in page 6, line 22, leave out ‘property, rights and liabilities’ and insert ‘property and rights’.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Wright]

As I mentioned earlier, clauses 7 and 8 are significant elements of the Bill; they change dramatically the current situation on the transfer of school surpluses and property. It is worth reiterating the point that I made about clause 7. Clause 7(2) requires that when the Secretary of State approves a maintained school’s application to become an academy,

“The local authority must determine…whether, immediately before the conversion date, the school has a surplus, and…if so, the amount of that surplus.”

Under clause 7(3), once that is done the local authority must pay the surplus over to the proprietor of the academy. As I said earlier, that represents a fundamental change to the current landscape, as at the moment surpluses of closing schools remain with the local authority. That includes cases in which an existing school is closed to become an academy.

A school might have built up a surplus for many reasons. Shared facilities might generate an income, for example, or a local authority or other party might have provided additional funding for work in the community and the maintained school might have been encouraged to build up a surplus to ensure that the new community facility could be built or established. That has certainly happened in my constituency, and I am sure that it has happened in other Members’ as well. In Hartlepool, a sports centre has been built on the estate of a particular school, through increased funding from various sources and surpluses held by that school. The understanding is that it will be used by other schools and by community groups.

Under the terms of the Bill as it stands, in such a situation the surplus would be transferred to the new academy, and any benefit to the wider community that was originally envisaged—the original purpose of the surpluses—would be lost. What reassurances can the Minister give to ensure that that does not happen? What is the Minister doing to stop a situation in which, somewhat late in the process, a school that has built up surpluses and is anticipating the building of a new community or shared facility on its estate, following negotiations with the local authority, then decides to convert to an academy?

That could happen without real consultation, but the school would hold on to those surpluses. The issue comes back to unilateral decisions that fail to take into account the wider community and collaboration between schools and the local education authority. In essence, the amendment tries to probe the Minister by asking what checks and balances he will insert into clause 7 to ensure that such surpluses are identified as appropriate and constitute value for money.

[Mr Graham Stuart]

Why would a school that had built up such surpluses to provide a community facility for joint use suddenly wish to deviate from that when it sought to become an academy? I am not saying that that would be impossible, but the hon. Gentleman seems to be suggesting that it would be the norm.

[Mr Wright]

I am not suggesting at all that that would be the norm, but we could provide a control mechanism in the legislation on this issue, to tighten up the existing provision. We are not suggesting that the transfer of surpluses should not take place, but wider circumstances might be considered that could prove detrimental to neighbouring schools.

The whole Committee would agree with the need to see transparency and value for money in all aspects involving public money and public assets. To respond to the Chair of the Education Committee, I should say that, essentially, clause 7 moves taxpayers’ money from the public sector to the private sector. What controls is the Minister proposing to ensure that that is subject to appropriate balance, scrutiny, transparency and probity?

[Mr Graham Stuart]

It is surely unfair to say that the clause moves resources to the private sector. We are talking about an independent state school, but it would still be a state school and not part of the private sector. Yesterday evening, the hon. Gentleman made a desperate effort to change the wording to “free market schools” rather than the wording in his amendment; that suggested more political desperation than is the norm with him.

[Mr Wright]

I thank the Chair of the Education Committee and I entirely understand his point. Perhaps I should moderate my language in Committee. However, the point is essentially the same: how do we ensure that local taxpayers get good value for money? Like the equalities impact assessment, the impact assessment of the Bill is somewhat vague and light on detail. It states:

“Total one-off costs incurred by schools converting to an academy are estimated to be an average £78k including VAT.

Since the VAT costs are a transfer payment from DoE to HMRC, they are not economic costs. The total economic costs per conversion to academy are therefore £66k.

However, there is scope for Academies meeting these costs from within their existing balances which could reduce the cost to DFE to as little as £25,000 per Academy.”

Will the Minister outline the evidence base for this? No mention whatever is made of the transfer of surpluses in this regard. In preparing for the Bill and with regard to the impact assessment, what work has been done in relation to surpluses that could be transferred to the academy? I would be interested in any information that he could provide about that.

The purpose of amendment 76 is to address those concerns about transparency and accountability and to try to ensure that there is an appropriate process.

[Dan Rogerson]

I am not sure whether the hon. Gentleman intends to discuss amendment 66, which is grouped with amendment 76. I may be misreading those amendments, but as I understand it, they are contradictory, because one of them seeks to remove liability while the other seeks to offset liabilities and surpluses. What is the thinking behind that?

[Mr Wright]

I will come to that, but I assure the hon. Gentleman that the amendments are not contradictory—they are trying to address a similar problem and to ensure that we can resolve this issue.

Amendment 76 would ensure that all existing and contingent liabilities, including any liabilities that have been incurred on behalf of the school by the local authority, should also be considered. In this context, I take the contingent liability to mean a possible obligation that arises from past events and whose existence will be confirmed only by the occurrence of one or more uncertain future events not wholly within the existing school’s control. An example could be outstanding legal cases. We discussed in Committee last night the possibility of legal challenge from staff who might not have had the opportunity or the time to consider properly the TUPE arrangements of moving from a maintained school to an academy—a point that has been well articulated by my hon. Friend the Member for Blaydon (Mr Anderson). That might be considered a possible contingent liability.

Another example, which has been discussed this afternoon, could be any liabilities arising under current private finance initiative arrangements. We had an interesting debate about amendment 70, with particular regard to PFI. One of the risks is that a local authority could have a potential 25-year period of liabilities arising from PFI, and converting a maintained school to an academy means that the academy has no way of being liable for that payment over that quarter of a century. What reassurance can the Minister give in that regard?

[Mr Graham Stuart]

May I take the hon. Gentleman back to TUPE and the speech last night by the hon. Member for Blaydon (Mr. Anderson), who was passionate about the uncertainty that could beset many employees of schools? Will he, as the Minister did, but from his side of the House, put their minds at rest? Can he confirm that when a school converts and becomes an academy, the staff will have no reason to believe that they will have any different conditions, and that it is therefore hard to see exactly what great liabilities could be in store in that transfer?

[Mr Wright]

I am not suggesting that there would automatically be any sort of change or reduction in terms and conditions. However, the freedoms and flexibilities, and the movement away from national terms and conditions and pay scales, could provide a degree of anxiety for staff, particularly low-paid staff who may have given good and loyal service to the local education authority for many years. For example, staff might think that they have had insufficient time to consider what converting to an academy might mean, and therefore, in conjunction with the union, take their employer to a tribunal. Perhaps that should be considered as part of a contingent liability. We need to ensure that all possible scenarios have been considered when taking into account the transfer of surpluses.

Clause 8 allows for the transfer of other property, and amendment 66 would remove the word “liabilities” from subsection (5)(b), which refers to the apportionment of properties, rights and liabilities. In response to the point made by the hon. Member for North Cornwall (Dan Rogerson), the reasoning behind the amendment is similar to the point that I made earlier about contingent liabilities. I reiterate that there is a particular concern about arrangements such as those under the private finance initiative regarding the transfer of liabilities, and the potential for them to be apportioned between the local authority and a new academy. In a PFI arrangement with 25 years of payments still to go, we must ask how appropriate costs should be so apportioned, and the amendment is an attempt to resolve that question.

We reason that if an academy is to operate as an independent school with full autonomy and freedom from the local authority, it should be responsible for full liability under any PFI arrangement in respect of the school. That seems balanced and fair, and I ask the Minister whether he is opposed to it.

We seek reassurance from the Minister that local authorities, which will face immense financial pressures over the next few years, with enormous potential cuts and pressures from changing social circumstances such as the ageing population, will not be liable for the debts of schools that have transferred as well as having to cover the costs of central services such as payroll, human resources and other infrastructure that they were, and will be, providing to maintained schools. I hope that he can provide that reassurance, and I commend the amendments to the Committee.

[Tim Loughton]

I seek to provide the shadow Minister with some reassurances on the various concerns that he has raised about surpluses. I support his objective that the whole system should be transparent and properly accountable. I think he is perhaps unduly concerned, but he is right to tease out some more information through what I believe are probing amendments. I shall address them in order and then turn to his points on the PFI.

Amendment 76 would widen the definition of the surplus to take account of all liabilities not being transferred to an academy, including any liabilities that a local authority incurred on behalf of a school. In calculating the surplus, local authorities will follow normal accounting procedures and take into account expenditure in respect of which work has been done or goods received but invoices have not yet been paid. As we see the new converters as continuing schools, we will seek to ensure that local authorities are not left to fund any remaining costs that would otherwise have been charged to the school’s budget—that is only fair. If a school has ongoing commitments such as an internal loan, we will expect it to continue those payments and the local authority to accept that.

For the same reason, it would not be appropriate to offset against the surplus any liabilities incurred by the local authority on behalf of the school that would not otherwise have been charged against the school’s budget. We understand that closing the old school’s accounts can be a lengthy process, and that authorities are concerned that they might pay over a final cash sum to the academy in accordance with the regulations, only to be left later with outstanding bills without any funding, which would not be fair.

We are drafting guidance on the calculation of surpluses, which I hope will give the hon. Gentleman the assurances he seeks. It will cover debtors and creditors, bank accounts and internal loans and is being developed with partners including the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy. There is also a model commercial transfer agreement for adoption by the school’s governing body, the academy and the local authority, which will deal with possibilities such as he described.

[Mr Iain Wright]

I thank the Minister for his clarification and welcome the fact that guidance will be provided. Can he give us any reassurance about the status of that guidance? Will it be, say, in secondary legislation subject to a negative resolution of the House, or will it be simply a press release on the Department’s website?

--- Later in debate ---

Our approach ensures that local authorities are financially no better or worse off as a result of a conversion, and those arrangements are set out in legally binding agreements that need to be negotiated between the Department, the local authority and the academy trust. I hope that that gives some assurance on the hon. Gentleman’s specific questions about PFI.

[Mr Iain Wright]

That sounds like a potential nightmare, and an awful lot of work needs to be done on it. The impact assessment mentions the negotiations between the DFE and DCLG only very briefly. What further information and clarity can the Minister give the Committee to ensure that good cross-departmental work is done so that local authorities are not penalised financially?

[Tim Loughton]

Such negotiations are not only between the DFE and DCLG; it is also a Treasury matter. We have had discussions involving those parties. I have heard what the hon. Gentleman has said and in ongoing discussions, we will take note of his point. However, I think he is unduly concerned. He quite rightly said that it is a complicated matter, but we have looked at the PFI scenario to ensure that there are no contingent liabilities that could queer the pitch for the authorities or academies involved. The Government believe that amendments 76 and 66 are unnecessary. It is appropriate that he has used them as probing amendments, but on the basis of those assurances, I invite him not press them to a Division.

[Mr Iain Wright]

The Minister has clarified many of my concerns, but some remain. This is another example and illustration of the Minister and his team legislating in haste. They may have to unravel much of the Bill in subsequent legislation in the next few months and years. I hope that he keeps the Opposition informed about discussions with his colleagues in DCLG, because I do not want local authorities to be liable for anything that could harm them financially in the next few years.

I hope that the guidance is slightly more than just that. It would have been a good idea to subject it to the negative resolution of the House. The Minister could have reflected over time and perhaps tabled a Government amendment on Report to that effect, but alas, that option is not available to us.

I am anxious to move proceedings on. I hope the Minister and his team will keep us informed. I understood him when he said that I was unduly concerned, on which basis I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 7 ordered to stand part of the Bill.



Clause 8

Transfer of other property

[Mr Iain Wright]

I beg to move amendment 65, page 6, line 38, at end add—

‘(11) The Secretary of State before making a property transfer scheme shall consult with—

(a) the local authority;

(b) the current owner, if not the local authority;

(c) such other persons as the Secretary of State considers appropriate.’.

An identical amendment was tabled in the other place by the noble Baroness Sharp of Guildford, and the rationale behind the proposal remains sound. The clause allows the Secretary of State to “make” a property transfer scheme, which might involve the transfer of IT equipment and other assets. I mentioned last night the weakness in the Bill regarding consultation, and amendment 65 would improve the consultative process. It seems perfectly reasonable to the Opposition that the local authority and the current owner—if that is not the local authority—are consulted to ascertain what should happen to other property or assets, and whether they could be used elsewhere in the area for alternative educational provision.

In speaking to the identical amendment in the other place, Baroness Sharp also said the clause does not mention consultation with interested parties that might be affected by such a transfer, such as catering contractors. My hon. Friend the Member for Blaydon (Mr Anderson) and I made a similar point last night about proper consultation with hard-working staff within the estate, such as catering and cleaning staff, as well as consultation on other assets such as IT equipment.

The amendment would mean a much smoother transfer from the existing school when it converts to academy status. The Minister in the other place said that he would reflect on the matter, and I believe that clause 10 arose as a result of that reflection. However, what should happen to other property, because that too should be subject to wider consultation? There should be proper consideration on important assets, of which the most important are the people who will be affected by the transfer. By doing so, we would ensure a much smoother, less painful and more considered transfer.

[Mr Gibb]

Clause 8 gives the Secretary of State the power to make a scheme to transfer the property of a maintained school in respect of which an academy order has been made. Amendment No. 65, ably moved by the hon. Member for Hartlepool (Mr Wright), would require the Secretary of State to consult the local authority or other owner or any other appropriate persons before making a property transfer scheme that would affect, among other things, desks, computers and the assets of any existing school.

In the case of converting academies, we intend that there should be a seamless transfer between the existing maintained school and the academy, as part of which the school will clearly need to be able to continue to use its property, and to take advantage of contracts into which it may have entered, such as those for cleaning, catering and insurance. It may also need to transfer the benefit of trust funds left in trust for pupils or the school. The trust—say, a bursary for art left to the school many years ago in the will of a benefactor—may well mention the name of the predecessor school, and clause 8 would enable it to be transferred to the new entity of the academy.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Gibb]

In those circumstances, the contract would transfer under this clause, but the employment rights would be between the company that is the subject of the contract and the employee, who is not employed either by the predecessor school or the successor academy. The employment rights would not change because the contract would continue with the employer, who would not change.

I should say that we anticipate that the making of any scheme under the provisions of this legislation will be rare. We hope that, in most cases, the transfer of property in connection with a school converting to an academy would be, as now, by agreement among the parties. In most circumstances, a transfer of contract would take place by agreement. That would be our starting point for any property transfer, and this would ensure that all those with an interest in the transfer of such property would be involved in negotiations about their potential transfer. Therefore, we would not get to the point of considering making a scheme under this clause until such discussions were exhausted. It is therefore inconceivable that anyone with an interest in the property to be transferred would not be consulted on a possible transfer in advance of any scheme being made. There is no reason why the Secretary of State would go to the trouble or expense of making a scheme if matters could be resolved amicably. There might be some contracts though, where the other party might try to use a transfer to obtain further financial benefit. The possibility of the making of a scheme would remove that incentive. The provision is an attempt to prevent the possibility that someone might be able to leverage financial compensation, knowing that the transfer has to take place. It is to avoid that possibility that this clause is in place, so that the Secretary of State can make a transfer against the wishes of people who are party to the contract.

The amendment is therefore unnecessary and I ask the hon. Member for Hartlepool to withdraw it.

[Mr Iain Wright]

In the large amount of time I have available, I would like to say that the Minister has explained a lot, and to be fair he has gone some way further than the Minister in the other place—

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.

Building Schools for the Future

Iain Wright Excerpts

Wednesday 21st July 2010 Westminster Hall

[Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)]

The hon. Member for Halton (Derek Twigg) mentioned chaos. As far as the Building Schools for the Future programme is concerned, I very much hope that at some stage there will be an independent inquiry into the conduct of Ministers in the previous Labour Government; the more I hear about the scheme and the conduct of Labour Ministers, the more scandalous it all becomes.

A project that was originally supposed to cost £45 billion ended up costing £55 billion. The previous Government spent £10 million simply setting up the procurement vehicle for Building Schools for the Future before a single brick had been laid. One person received £1.35 million in consultancy fees. It is difficult to see how that sum can possibly be justified. A single individual in this project received more than £1 million.

[Mr Iain Wright (Hartlepool) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Gentleman name the individual?

[Tony Baldry]

The hon. Gentleman who has just intervened was a Minister of the Crown in the last Government. Is he asserting from the Front Bench that no individual received more than £1 million in consultancy fees from this project? Is that what the hon. Gentleman is saying?

[Mr Wright]

indicated assent.

[Tony Baldry]

So the hon. Gentleman is inferring that the Secretary of State, in putting that forward on the advice of officials, was misleading the House?

[Mr Wright]

indicated assent.

[Tony Baldry]

What I am saying is what the Secretary of State asserted in the main Chamber last week. The hon. Gentleman is essentially asserting that the Secretary of State misled the House. Is that what he is saying?

[Mr Wright]

I am suggesting that not one single individual received the amount of money that the hon. Gentleman alludes to. It was a consultancy firm that received that money, following a wide range of different projects relating to BSF. It was not a single individual.

[Tony Baldry]

This is an important point. The hon. Gentleman is implying that the Secretary of State misled the House last week when he said very clearly, in terms, that an individual had received more than £1 million. I am confident that the Secretary of State would not have misled the House, either knowingly or unknowingly.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Iain Wright (Hartlepool) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gray. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Halton (Derek Twigg) on securing this timely and hugely important debate. He has campaigned tenaciously on this issue on behalf of the schools in his constituency and I applaud him for it.

This has been an energetic and passionate debate, and rightly so. Education fires up people’s passions. Many hon. Members from various parties were drawn into politics because they want to work to give all our children and young people the best possible start—an aim with which I think we all agree. However, the whole House should also agree that cutting Building Schools for the Future so soon after the birth of the coalition Government is a shameful and shambolic example of ministerial arrogance and incompetence.

Time and time again in this debate, we have heard of the anger in hon. Members’ constituencies—real anger, not synthetic—about the decision to scrap school buildings. My hon. Friend the Member for Halton, my right hon. Friend the Member for Oxford East (Mr Smith) and my hon. Friend the Member for Streatham (Mr Umunna) have made excellent speeches. I also highlight the excellent contribution made by the hon. Member for Newark (Patrick Mercer), who illustrated the cross-party anger about the matter. The rally in London on Monday organised by the teaching unions and my right hon. Friend the shadow Secretary of State for Education showed the depth of anger not just in the House, but across the country among parents, young people, teachers, school governors and local authorities.

We have heard that the manner in which the decision was made showed breathtaking incompetence and arrogance. It was incompetent because the Secretary of State, whom I like very much and think is an incredibly intelligent man, was not on top of his brief. It was a debacle because information was not provided to hon. Members when the Secretary of State made his statement to the House on 5 July. It was a shambles because error after error appeared in the cancellation lists. I think that we are currently on our fifth or sixth list, but I might be a bit behind the curve.

What matters more than any of that is the fact that 735 schools will now not be refurbished or rebuilt as planned. It is confusing. Dyke House school in my constituency was due for financial closure this Friday. It has decanted all its students to another site ahead of the two-year building programme. The head teacher has invested another £400,000 to facilitate the build, and the local authority has invested £3 million to ensure that it takes place. There has been no word whatever about whether the project can proceed. I asked a named day question about Dyke House school on 6 July, to be answered on 12 July. Almost two weeks after that answer was due to be provided, I have not yet got a response from the Department. I had the privilege to serve as a Minister in the Department for Children, Schools and Families, and I found it an incredible honour to work with the most passionate, energetic and professional officials anywhere in Whitehall. This is not the officials’ fault; it is a symptom and a sign of ministerial dysfunction and incompetence, and the ministerial team should be ashamed of themselves.

[Mr Slaughter]

My hon. Friend is identifying some of the perhaps unintended consequences. It is not just that schools are being left with crumbling buildings; local authorities’ plans for redeveloping schools have also been thrown into chaos, causing not only financial loss but the sort of loss that my hon. Friend is discussing. In some local authorities, including mine, academies have had a full modernisation programme but other schools have been left to rot, resulting in a two-tier system. It is a complete shambles.

[Mr Wright]

I agree absolutely. At the moment, we are debating the Academies Bill on the Floor of the House; I think that we are about to suspend for a Division on it. The Academies Bill will set up a two-tier system of education as well.

--- Later in debate ---

On resuming—

[Mr Iain Wright]

rose—

[Mr James Gray (in the Chair)]

Minister—[Interruption.] I beg your pardon; I mean Mr Iain Wright.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Wright]

If only that were still the case, Mr Gray, some school buildings might still be being refurbished and rebuilt.

Before the Division, we were discussing the arrogance and incompetence of the current ministerial team. When the Secretary of State announced his decision, he committed the cardinal sin of failing to ask the right questions. That was arrogant, because he thought that there was no need to consult or ask whether his information was correct and accurate. That is an example of top-down government—the belief that the Minister in Whitehall knows best and that there is no need to check data or facts with schools, trade unions or local authorities.

Building Schools for the Future was not perfect; I have not suggested that and nor has any other hon. Member who has contributed to this debate. However, it was ambitious in its scope, and that was something that we had not seen in this country for the best part of a century. It represented nothing less than a 15-year programme to refurbish or replace every single secondary school in England.

[Ben Gummer]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Wright]

The hon. Gentleman must forgive me, but I have only four minutes left. In cancelling BSF, the Secretary of State told the House that rising standards in schools are not based on new or improved school buildings.

[Derek Twigg]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Mr Wright]

Given that my hon. Friend secured the debate, I feel that I should give way.

[Derek Twigg]

On the point about rising standards, there was some suggestion that standards had not risen under Labour, yet in Halton they have risen significantly in all secondary schools. In fact, only today Bankfield school, my old school, has been rated as outstanding by Ofsted.

[Mr Wright]

I congratulate Bankfield school on that achievement. Hartlepool local education authority was the fastest-improving education authority in the past 10 years, with regard to rising economic standards, and we have just lost out on £104 million of BSF funding. That could have been the last piece in the jigsaw that would allow our young people in Hartlepool, Halton and elsewhere to meet their potential and thrive.

The Labour Government were allowing teachers, who are professional and well respected, to use their professionalism to inspire and impart knowledge. The CBI produced an interesting report last year that found that exam results in BSF schools improved at more than four times the rate of other schools. It also found that in those schools 30% of pupils felt safer, that bullying and vandalism had decreased by 23% and 51% respectively and that 13% more pupils said that they intended to stay on for the sixth form. Therefore, there is a close relationship between rising standards and inspiring buildings.

To allow Britain to compete in the modern globalised economy, surely we need world-class facilities. If we are to lead the world in science in the 21st century, surely we need state-of-the-art science labs to help motivate and inspire the next generation of scientists. If we are to be at the cutting edge of climate change mitigation, surely a good start would be to demonstrate to pupils, from the youngest possible age, that green buildings can help protect the environment. On a slightly more mundane level, surely it is right that this country, which is still the world’s fifth largest economy—despite the comments of Government Members who want to run down our economic performance—should be able to provide school buildings that do not leak.

The Minister must answer several questions that the Secretary of State seems pathologically incapable of answering. If the Minister does not have time to answer them, I would appreciate it if he wrote to me, and to the Members who have participated in the debate, with specific answers.

Did the Secretary of State at any point receive written or oral advice from his officials or from Partnership for Schools urging him not to publish a list of schools until after he had consulted local authorities to ensure that his criteria were sound and his facts right? Was he advised of the risk of legal challenge from private building contractors? What contingency has his Department put in place for possible judicial reviews from schools, local authorities and private contractors? Will the Minister admit that the decision was not about inefficiency, cumbersome bureaucracy or insufficient funds, but was considered necessary by the Secretary of State to free up money for his dogmatic and ideological free market experiment in schools?

When the Secretary of State announced the cuts to BSF to the House, he stated:

“Action is urgently needed today because the whole of my predecessor’s Department’s spending plans were based on unsustainable assumptions and led to unfunded promises.”—[Official Report, 5 July 2010; Vol. 513, c. 50.]

That is a serious allegation about the financial controls and the accountancy and budgetary procedures at the Department for Children, Schools and Families. It alleges that the permanent secretary, as accounting officer, allowed the then Secretary of State to make uncosted promises for short-term political gain.

However, the permanent secretary has stated in a letter to my right hon. Friend the Member for Morley and Outwood (Ed Balls):

“During your time as Secretary of State, I can confirm that the Department for Children, Schools and Families worked closely with Her Majesty’s Treasury to ensure that appropriate cover was provided for spending decisions. Decisions on capital expenditure, including those relating to Building Schools for the Future, were subject to Treasury clearance where appropriate...If any actions on this or any matter were in breach of the requirements of propriety or regularity, I would have sought a ministerial direction. I can confirm that I made no such requests during your time as Secretary of State.”

Will the Minister concede that there were no unfunded promises in the BSF programme and that all schemes went through appropriate procedures of appraisal at both the Department and the Treasury? Will he now apologise for the scurrilous allegations about my right hon. Friend’s conduct?

In conclusion, the Secretary of State’s decision on Building Schools for the Future has cost him a lot; in the space of an afternoon, his reputation—hard won over many years—was reduced to tatters. More importantly, the decision has cost the private sector the potential for recovery and local authorities millions of pounds in opportunity costs and sunk spending. Even more importantly, by denying hundreds of thousands of children and young people the opportunity to be taught in world-class facilities of outstanding design, that decision will be to the cost of the educational potential, and hence the social and economic progress, of this country for many decades to come.

Oral Answers to Questions

Iain Wright Excerpts

Monday 12th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her question, but I refer her to a letter from the permanent secretary of my Department to the right hon. Member for Morley and Outwood (Ed Balls). He pointed out last week that, last year, the Treasury wrote to clarify its expectations of the use of end-year flexibility capital. The Treasury wanted to limit its use, but the Department refused to acknowledge it. The Treasury said clearly to the right hon. Gentleman that he was playing fast and loose with that capital stream. The issue had not been resolved by the time of the election, and instead of the dysfunctional relationship between the right hon. Gentleman and the Treasury, we now have a proper relationship involving a coalition Government who are clearing up the mess that we inherited from the hon. Lady’s Government.

[Mr Iain Wright (Hartlepool) (Lab)]

Why was not a single word about that further £1 billion cut in education mentioned in the Secretary of State’s oral statement to the House last week? Will he confirm that the additional cuts in education, at the expense of hundreds of thousands of pupils in Wakefield, West Yorkshire and elsewhere, are being made so that he can open free market schools for the benefit of mere hundreds of pupils?

[Michael Gove]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, but he made two mistakes in his question. First, in my statement to the House last week, I explicitly mentioned that the right hon. Member for Morley and Outwood had abused end-year flexibility. That is why he was kind enough to write to me, and why the permanent secretary was kind enough to write to put the record straight and to explain that the Treasury was in dispute with the right hon. Gentleman—not for the first, nor, I suspect, the last time. The hon. Gentleman’s other mistake is over the fact that the reduction in the—to my mind—unwarranted exploitation of end-year flexibility has been to restore sanity to the public finances after the mess that the right hon. Gentleman created. The capital allocation for our free schools is just £50 million, and it comes from a lower priority set of IT programmes. The permanent secretary makes it clear in his letter that the previous Government left us in a mess, which we are trying to resolve.

Oral Answers to Questions

Iain Wright Excerpts

Monday 7th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Tim Loughton]

I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for those comments; it has been a long time coming. We are certainly considering how schools can be further encouraged to use the existing recruitment and retention pay flexibilities which are available to address local teacher shortages in maths and other priority subjects. Head teachers already have some scope to do that, but we plan to reform the existing, rigid national pay and conditions so that schools have greater freedoms to attract top science and maths graduates, along with others as they see fit, to be teachers. Such academy-style freedoms are being debated in other place as part of the Academies Bill.

[Mr Iain Wright (Hartlepool) (Lab)]

On behalf of the whole House, let me welcome my right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham (Mr Timms) back to his rightful place.

May I warmly welcome the hon. Gentleman to his position as Under-Secretary of State? If he keeps his nose clean and pulls his socks up, he might become a Minister of State, although I think he will have to become a Liberal Democrat for that to happen. May I also welcome the rest of the ministerial team to their posts and wish them all the very best with their responsibilities?

We agree with motivating and encouraging more graduates of science and maths into teaching. On the basis of that encouraging and motivational language, will the hon. Gentleman comment on the remarks made by the Minister for Schools, who is reported to have said:

“I would rather have a physics graduate from Oxbridge without a PGCE teaching in a school than a physics graduate from one of the rubbish universities with a PGCE”?

Would the Under-Secretary like to apologise on behalf of his hon. Friend, or at least provide the House with a list of “rubbish universities”, so that graduates from those institutions need not apply for teaching posts under this new Government?

[Tim Loughton]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his opening comments. I will certainly keep my nose clean and pull my socks up, if that is what he thinks is required. I know the job of opposition too well: the job of opposition is to scrabble around to make trivia newsworthy, and I congratulate him, on his debut on the Opposition Benches, on doing that. I am not going to comment on that trivia, but let me be clear when I say that we have many very talented teachers in schools today. We intend to build on that and ensure that organisations outside the reach of government, such as Teach First, are given the opportunity to expand and that we support them in doing so. I am sure we can all agree that we have great universities in this country. This Government are committed to supporting those universities, as we recognise the importance of all universities, courses and degrees, which, through their rigour, increase the intellectual capability of the nation and its skills base.