Academies Bill [Lords]

Julian Huppert Excerpts

Wednesday 21st July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Ian Mearns]

Nevertheless, local authorities are uncertain about the financial implications and their capacity to improve schools in the future. Indeed, education cannot be delivered in isolation from the wider range of local public services used by children and young people—or by the local community. Within education, if the role of local authorities as commissioners was recognised and strengthened, the children’s services budget could be more efficiently used by delivering a wider range of services through schools.

It is important to ensure that all children have fair access to a place in a local school, and that academies operate a fair admissions procedure. Similarly, it is imperative that all schools operate a fair exclusions policy. I was pleased that the Secretary of State gave a reassurance on Second Reading when he said that academies

“have to abide by the admissions code and subscribe to fair access protocols, so that those hard-to-place children are placed appropriately.”—[Official Report, 19 July 2010; Vol. 514, c. 31.]

However, I would like to see an inclusion in the Bill that all academies must comply with admissions law and codes and fair access protocols, as well as regulations relating to pupil exclusions. That would ensure that they were on the same footing as other schools, requiring a change to primary legislation to amend and making them truly equal partners. I therefore ask the Committee to accept amendment No. 19 in my name because it would achieve exactly that.

[Dr Julian Huppert (Cambridge) (LD)]

I tabled amendments 42, 43 and 44, which deal with one aspect of admissions to academies of a religious nature. I understand the benefits that can flow from such schools. Indeed, I used to be a governor of a Church of England school in the ward I represented and it was a very interesting experience. However, I am concerned that the Bill may inadvertently lead to an increase in the proportion of religious places. It risks permanently entrenching religious segregation in our education system through irreversible changes that could permit wide discrimination in admissions and employment.

By “freeing” religious academies from the national curriculum without sufficient safeguards, the Bill also risks exposing children to extreme religious views, including creationism. Members will know that I have spent some time arguing for the scientific line on such issues. My concern is widely shared. A new ICM poll commissioned by the British Humanist Association found that 72% of the public are concerned that the Academies Bill could lead to taxpayers’ money being used to promote religion. A third of the public said that they were “very concerned” about that. The poll also found that two thirds of people think that religious academies should be required to teach pupils about other beliefs, including non-religious ones.

I seek assurances from the Minister on these issues and I have tabled three amendments to flush out their thinking in this area. Amendment 42 would prevent any form of religious discrimination in admissions policies. Many state-funded “faith schools” use privileges to have highly selective admissions criteria, giving preference to the children of parents with particular beliefs. The Government have so far made it clear that they intend to allow these schools to retain their admissions policies, and I have great concerns in that area. It can cause segregation along religious and socio-economic lines. Professor Ted Cantle, author of a report into community cohesion in Blackburn, describes religious schools as

“automatically a source of division”

in the town, which is not something we would wish to see. In other areas, faith schools, which are their own admissions authorities—as these academies will be—are 10 times more likely to be highly unrepresentative of their surrounding area than faith schools where the local authority is the admission authority. Separating children by religion, class and ethnicity is totally antithetical to the aims of social cohesion, and amendment 42 would ensure that no academy pupil is discriminated against on religious grounds.

That is an ideal to which I hope we all aspire. However, if amendment 42 cannot be accepted by the Government, I hope that amendment 43 can at least provide greater assurance. It would ensure that, at the very least, existing faith schools cannot discriminate more when they achieve academy status. During discussions in the other place, the Government confirmed that maintained faith schools will be able to discriminate in admissions. I hope they will change their mind on that. They said that a 50% quota would be imposed to ensure that 50% of admissions would not be religiously selective, and that was repeated on Second Reading. However, that provision is not in the Bill, the model funding agreement or any other official guidance or information. We need to know what would happen there. If amendment 42 cannot be accepted, I hope that amendment 43 will be, to ensure that things can get no worse than they currently are.

Finally, I turn to amendment 44, which deals with two issues, one of which I take to be a drafting error on which I seek reassurance, and the other is the desire to provide choice for current religious schools. I shall take the second part of the amendment first. The amendment would ensure symmetry. Currently a state-funded religious school becomes a religious academy, but there is nothing to confirm that a non-faith school becomes a non-faith academy. I therefore seek the guarantee, which I think the Secretary of State intended, that that is what would happen—that their nature simply would not change.

The first part of the amendment deals with schools that are religious schools now. Currently, a state-maintained school with a religious character is forced to become an academy with that religious character, but surely religious schools should at least have the option not to do that if they do not wish to. That would be popular with the local community: a recent poll found that 64% of people agreed that the Government should not be funding faith schools of any kind—but that is a debate for another time. However, some faith schools are only nominally of a religious character—that character being a residue of former connections. When taking on academy status with the possibility of growth, these schools may wish to free themselves of the restrictive status of being of a religious character which has ceased to be relevant to them. The amendment would allow them the choice, rather than compel them.

I hope my amendments will be considered carefully by the Government, and I hope that Ministers will comment on them. I intend them as probing amendments and will not press them to a vote, but I hope that the Government will take them seriously and accept a number of them.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

I am the author of four amendments in this group, and their purpose is to try to make it mandatory for the new academies to comply with the schools admission code. Concerns have been expressed in this debate that increasing the number of academies will have major implications for admissions planning, and, as I said, the amendments seek to ensure that there is co-ordination and that it is mandatory for academies to comply with the code.

If the Government are serious that the proposals will not open up the back door to selection, as many of us fear—that promise was made in the other place—why not state very clearly in the Bill that academies should comply with the schools admission code, instead of only stating that academies will have to comply with the codes under their funding arrangements? Although required under those arrangements to meet the code, the levers to ensure that that happens still rest entirely with the Secretary of State. So all concerns about fairness keep being met with the reassurance that it is in the funding agreement, but that is not good enough. Parents must know, through a proper consultation process prior to the setting up of an academy, what the admissions arrangements for the school will be and how their chances of getting into the local schools will be affected. Furthermore, there must be mechanisms to ensure that funding agreements can be changed to ensure that academies follow any changes required in any future code on admissions.

Essentially, voluntary-aided schools, foundation schools, trust schools and academies all operate as admission authorities, able to set their own admission criteria. Research over a number of years has shown that where schools set their own criteria, there is more social segregation. In particular, the fact that grammar schools will be allowed to become academies is a serious concern. Selective academies will be able to expand in a way that grammar schools currently are not allowed to. That expansion will also take place after limited consultation with the local community. I would therefore like the Minister to reassure the Committee that all new academies, including former grammar schools, will be required to participate in local admissions co-ordination schemes.

Under the 2009 code, the schools adjudicators, as the independent enforcers of fair access to schools, also have a wider remit to consider any admissions arrangements that come to their attention, in addition to any complaints received through an objection. Can the Minister tell the Committee whether the schools adjudicators will be reporting annually to the Secretary of State on the admissions of academies as well? We could debate at length the ability of an admission forum to ensure fairness, but will the Minister assure the Committee that academies will be represented on admissions forums? Currently, regulations allow for the administration of all admissions—in other words, dealing with the key administrative decisions on whether an applicant meets the admissions criteria, even if they are set by the school—to be carried out by the local authority. Is the option to allow the local authority to administer admissions still open to all schools, including academies? Finally, will the Government encourage a role for local authorities in administering admissions in that way?

--- Later in debate ---

[Tony Baldry]

I do not accept that as a principle or an assertion, although I would be happy to meet the hon. Lady to talk about it, because the Church takes considerable pride in the fact that it admits into its schools a wide range of pupils, from all backgrounds, all faiths and all cultures, particularly in London. The Church of England sees that as an important part of its outreach and its commitment to the community and society as a whole.

[Dr Huppert]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Tony Baldry]

I will, but let me finish my point.

It is of fundamental importance that parents can educate their children as they wish. My hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge is clearly opposed to any faith schools at all. That may well be a debate for another occasion, but it is not a debate under this Bill. This Bill does nothing to alter the existing covenant and arrangements between Church and faith groups in respect of faith schools. I suspect that I am not the only Member to have received all sorts of e-mails suggesting otherwise. They are wrong: this Bill does nothing to upset or alter the covenant between Church and state that has existed since 1944.

[Dr Huppert]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way. First, he says that parents have a choice, but does he accept that that simply does not apply in many rural areas where there is no reasonable choice because there is a shortage of schools nearby? Furthermore, he says that there is no change, so may I take it that he will support the second part of my amendment 44, which stipulates that there should be no change in either direction—into or out of faith schools?

[Tony Baldry]

For the more than 27 years I have represented my constituency, I have never yet received a complaint from a parent about being obliged to send a child to a rural church school. It is usually the other way round, with parents expressing the concern that they cannot get their children into the local church school if there is only one school available. I hope that Government Members would accept it as a fundamental principle that, so far as possible, children should be educated in accordance with the wishes of their parents.

On my hon. Friend’s second point, with all due respect I think his amendments are seeking to create some straw men that simply do not exist in this Bill. It is a distraction. There may be another time for such a debate and I am sure that I and other colleagues would gladly engage with him because many in the House believe that faith schools make a very substantial contribution to our national life, provide diversity in education and contribute to the richness of educational experience in this country. As I say, I believe that seeking to introduce these amendments is a distraction, and I hope that the House will oppose them.