Academies Bill [Lords]

Julian Smith Excerpts

Monday 26th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham) (Lab)]

I would like to speak to amendment 4, and to support amendment 78, on the process of consultation, and amendment 77, on the timing.

I have grave concerns about the Bill. I cannot understand why the provisions are being rushed through for no identifiable reason other than political expediency. The Bill seems to seek completely to undermine the role of local authorities. It seems to be unaware of—indeed, antagonistic towards—the crucial role that those authorities play in planning for special educational needs, equalities, fair admissions, and so on. From my 25 years of being a governor, I know the importance of the local education authority in supporting schools, so it should be quite clear that I am not happy with the Bill. However, it is simply disgraceful to try to force through a re-designation of maintained schools to academies, bringing about a change in governance, curricula and admissions, and a possible loss of amenity to a local community, albeit without any meaningful consultation with them.

Amendment 4 seeks to outline a range of people and groups who should be consulted. They include—obviously—teachers, parents, other local authorities, pupils, potential partners to academies, and the wider community.

[Julian Smith (Skipton and Ripon) (Con)]

Proposed clause 5(1)(c) in amendment 4 lists the pupils. Would the hon. Lady not agree that consulting with pupils aged 11—or, if we give academy status to primary schools, five or six—might be a little stretching for them at that point in their educational cycle?

[Roberta Blackman-Woods]

The hon. Gentleman makes an interesting point. I have some experience of consulting on an academy—albeit not the sort of the academy proposed by the Bill—and I can assure him that pupils find it very easy to grasp what the change of their school to academy status would mean. However, his point is valid in that there must be a given length of time for a consultation to take place, so that the arguments for and against an academy in an area can be properly explained to everyone concerned. However, the Bill completely overrides any meaningful consultation process.

--- Later in debate ---

[Vernon Coaker]

I was going to make that point: schools adjudicators have been involved almost as a final route of appeal. I know from my experience as a Minister—if the hon. Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy) becomes a Minister he will find this out—that even when one thinks a decision is right, it can be completely thrown out of the window because the schools adjudicator prevents something from going ahead. That happened to me a couple of times in relation to the closure of a school.

[Julian Smith (Skipton and Ripon) (Con)]

Does the Minister accept that there have been examples of Labour-held local authorities being given the opportunity to set up academies but rejecting it without consulting parents at all? I refer specifically to the offer by Goldman Sachs several years ago to set up an academy in Tower Hamlets. The local authority there gave parents not a jot of consultation.

[Vernon Coaker]

Some local authorities have been a problem, but not just Labour authorities—Conservative local authorities have also stood in the way of academy development. One pays a price for local democracy and involving local authorities: sometimes it means that people pursue educational options in their area that one does not agree with. That is the point I was making when I asked the Minister whether localism is fine only as long as it goes along with the Government’s policy objectives.

There are all sorts of unanswered questions about consultation, many of which the hon. Member for Portsmouth South has laid out. What happens to local authorities? What happens to the money? What happens regarding special needs? Who is vetting the consultation that takes place? Who knows what is going on? How will the school funding proposals that have been published today affect what is going on? There are all sorts of issues to be discussed.