Academies Bill [Lords]

Jonathan Reynolds Excerpts

Monday 19th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Bill Esterson]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. As always, he hits the nail bang on the head. I interpreted those words as providing the opportunity to have a conversation with oneself, which would certainly fit the Bill. We are talking about inadequate legislation and my hon. Friend has identified one of the best examples of that lack of adequacy.

It is a pity that the hon. Member for Southport (Dr Pugh) has left the Chamber, because the head teacher of Churchtown primary school in Southport said that the consultation was a shambles. He, like head teachers from Sefton, recently attended some of the consultation meetings held by the Government. The feedback was that there was no information, no one was able to answer their questions and there was no opportunity to find out what the whole academy and free school programme was about. It does not inspire confidence when head teachers make such observations.

Parents’ groups and private companies will be able to open new schools with funding from the taxpayer, even where there are already sufficient places. They will take pupils from existing schools, where funding will be cut and education will suffer for the majority left behind. New buildings will be created for many free schools by using the money saved by cancelling new buildings for existing schools. In Sefton Central that means Chesterfield high school and Crosby high school, which is a special school due to be co-located with Chesterfield high school. It was an opportunity to integrate the pupils of a special school with pupils at a mainstream school and was welcomed and supported by parents, teachers and pupils. That opportunity has been taken away.

[Jonathan Reynolds (Stalybridge and Hyde) (Lab/Co-op)]

My hon. Friend mentioned that two schools were to be co-located to produce a better educational facility for the pupils of both schools. There is a similar situation in several areas in my constituency. Local authorities may have been relying on a capital receipt from the sale of one site but that site could now be made available for a free school, so does my hon. Friend share my concern that that would throw into doubt the entire reorganisation of education in my constituency, and perhaps in his?