Education and Adoption Bill

Kevin Brennan Excerpts

Monday 22nd June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Nicky Morgan]

I will, of course, adhere to that restriction, Madam Deputy Speaker, and take only a limited number of interventions.

For the second time in a week, I agree with the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne). I will talk about coasting schools in a moment, because they form an important part of the Bill. He is right that this is not just about tackling failure, but about stretching the most able and ensuring that all children make the progress that they are more than capable of.

I was talking about examples of failing academies. Thetford academy was put in special measures in March 2013. The Department replaced the sponsors and brought in the Inspiration Trust, which took the school on in July 2013. The results in the next academic year showed that the number of students achieving five GCSEs at grades A* to C, including English and maths, rose by 10 percentage points. A few months later, in December 2014, Ofsted judged Thetford to be “good with outstanding leadership”. The report described the school as “transformed beyond recognition” and said that the trust’s leadership and support had created a

“strong culture where only the best is good enough.”

That is why the Opposition’s amendment is without merit. I suspect that the shadow Secretary of State knows that himself, but having failed to identify sufficient Members of Parliament to support either him or the hon. Member for Leicester West (Liz Kendall) to stand for the party leadership, he knows he has to take up the aggressive anti-choice, anti-academy rhetoric of some Opposition Members and their union paymasters.

Let me deal now with coasting schools, as I was asked to do by the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish. Alongside strengthening powers to intervene in failing schools, the Bill provides for the first time measures to tackle coasting schools. As the Prime Minister so clearly put it, “just good enough” should not be enough for anyone’s child. How we will define coasting schools has already generated considerable interest. I welcome the level of engagement from this House and outside it. To support the Bill’s passage, we will ensure that draft regulations on the definition of coasting are available in Committee for Parliament to scrutinise.

Let me set out the principles that will inform the definition. First, I want to make it clear that the definition will be based on pupil performance data and not on a single Ofsted judgment. Where a school is judged to require improvement by Ofsted, it will not automatically fall within the coasting definition. Secondly, the definition will take into account the progress pupils make—whether they achieve their potential based on their starting point and whether, as we discussed, the brightest are being stretched and the less able properly supported. Finally, the definition will be based on performance over three years, identifying schools that have been coasting over a period of time, rather than through a single set of results.

I emphasise that the Bill does not propose any automatic interventions for coasting schools. Coasting schools will be eligible for intervention, but regional schools commissioners will have the discretion to decide the most appropriate course of action. Some coasting schools may have the capacity to improve sufficiently and, where that is the case, they should be given the opportunity to get on with it, without distraction.

Other coasting schools may require additional support and challenge from a national leader of education or a strong local school. By creating this new category of coasting schools, regional schools commissioners will have the power to pair those schools that need to improve with educational experts who can help them along the way. When—and only when—a coasting school has no credible plan or is not improving sufficiently, it is right that regional schools commissioners are able to instigate academy conversion to ensure that pupils and parents get the world-class education they deserve.

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

Will the Secretary of State give way?

[Nicky Morgan]

No, I am going to make some progress. The hon. Gentleman will have a chance to make his point, both at the end of this debate and in Committee.

I would like to emphasise the continuing role we expect local authorities to play, alongside regional schools commissioners, in challenging their schools to improve. Local authorities should take swift and effective action when failure occurs in a maintained school, using the powers they already have to issue warning notices, and replace governing bodies wherever necessary. Last year, 90 warning notices were issued by local authorities, but we know that some local authorities have never used their powers. That is why the Bill proposes to give the same warning notice powers to regional schools commissioners. Such notices will give a school the opportunity to tackle the concerns in the first instance, or face necessary intervention where serious concerns remain.

[Kevin Brennan]

rose—

[Nicky Morgan]

I am not giving way to the hon. Gentleman, because he will have a chance to tell his hon. Friend the shadow Secretary of State what he would like him to ask.

Our expectation is that local authorities should work alongside regional schools commissioners to prioritise the schools in greatest need and decide the most appropriate powers to deploy in each case. The education measures in the Bill are about ensuring all children have the same chance to fulfil their potential, expanding opportunities and bringing real social justice to our country.

Let me deal with the part of the Bill that concerns adoption. During the previous Parliament, the Government took decisive action—[Interruption.] It is a great shame that some Opposition Members—and certainly Opposition Front-Bench Members—do not want to listen to what I am saying about an important part of the Bill that deals with adoption. Opposition Back-Bench Members are listening to what I am saying about the important provisions on adoption.

During the previous Parliament, the Government took decisive action to reform an adoption system that was too bureaucratic and time-consuming, leaving children waiting for far too long or causing them to miss out on being adopted altogether. To drive improvements, we have established the National Adoption Leadership Board, chaired by Sir Martin Narey; given £200 million to local authorities through the adoption reform grant; invested a further £17 million in the voluntary adoption sector; and launched a £19.3 million adoption support fund to provide therapeutic support to adopted children and their families.

The numbers prove that those reforms are working. Adoptions have increased by 63% in the past three years, from just over 3,000 in 2011 to more than 5,000 in 2014. Children are also spending less time waiting to be adopted, with the average time between coming into care and being placed with a family down by nearly four months. Those are achievements to be proud of.

The current system is not working as well as it could, however. It is still highly fragmented, with about 180 different adoption agencies, many of which operate on a very small scale.

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[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

The hon. Member for Faversham and Mid Kent (Helen Whately) mentioned the freedoms that academies enjoy and, undoubtedly, the academies legislation provides for additional freedoms. But most of the freedoms that heads in academies have used could have been used when the school was maintained. That was the finding from the evidence that the Education Committee took. The legislation has not led to wholesale change in how such freedoms are used.

Several hon. Members have talked about coasting schools, which is one of the issues of greatest contention in the Bill. The Education Committee looked at the issue of coasting schools, and we found that schools that were doing well—with a good or even an outstanding Ofsted grading—were not necessarily doing the best by their students. A coasting school can be doing very well, but should be doing better, and the difficulty for Opposition Members is understanding exactly what is meant by “coasting”. Is the Secretary of State targeting schools that are already doing well but should be doing better, or is she looking at schools that are perhaps not doing so well by their children? The definition needs to be addressed in Committee.

What should we be looking at today on Second Reading? I would hope that any proposed legislation on education would consider how education can deliver long-term prosperity and success for our young people and for our economy. Education is a critical factor, if not the critical factor, in determining how well young people are prepared for the wider world, in particular the world of work. Employers look to us to deliver an education system where young people can turn up at work and be ready to get going and to contribute, yet throughout the five years of the previous Parliament the Education Committee heard again and again from employers that far too often that is not happening. Young people are not coming out of school prepared for the world of work. Work experience is one example of where things have gone backwards in the past five years.

The Select Committee produced a number of inquiries. On more than one occasion, it came up with evidence which has been mentioned by many Members: the most important factor in providing great education is the quality of teachers, in particular head teachers. That came up in the inquiry into great teachers, but was repeated again and again in the past five years. What is happening in the world of education to deliver great teachers? The education element of the Bill looks at making academisation easier, but it has nothing to say on the quality of teaching. That is a great pity.

It has been suggested by many that the Government want all schools to become academies. Given that the term “coasting schools” is so broadly defined, it occurs to me to ask whether that is really what the Government are trying to do. By failing to define it, are they saying that they want all schools to become academies, without being quite so bold as to actually state that? If that is the intention, Ministers really ought to say so. Perhaps the Minister, in winding up, will confirm whether that is what he wants to do. From what he has said in the past, I think that is his intention.

[Kevin Brennan]

On that point, I wonder whether my hon. Friend saw recently in Tatler—I am sure he is an avid reader—the comments of the headteacher of Wymondham College in Norfolk, Mr Melvyn Roffe? He said that he had been told becoming an academy would mean more freedom and autonomy, but what happened was the reverse. He said:

“We have had more control from central government rather than local government…I don’t believe he”—

referring to the former Education Secretary, the Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice, the right hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove)—

“intended academy status to reduce autonomy. I wish he had the courage to say there are schools doing a good job and they should be allowed to do a good job.”

He regrets the college becoming an academy, so it is not always the case that heads welcome it.

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[Mrs Flick Drummond (Portsmouth South) (Con)]

I congratulate all those who have made their maiden speeches today, in particular my hon. Friend the Member for Telford (Lucy Allan), whose powerful speech made a big impact on me. I would have liked to talk about adoption, but I will concentrate on schools today.

I welcome the new categorisation of coasting schools. Having worked as a lay Ofsted inspector, I know exactly what those sort of schools look like: schools that are not stretching every child and are happy to just reach the minimum level. I have been rung up by parents asking me why their very nice primary school has been classified as inadequate, and why their great teachers were not doing as well as they thought they were. Schools would be classified as inadequate because bright children were getting level 4 rather than level 6, and other children were getting level 3 when they should have been getting level 4. It is these schools that have been classified as inadequate. They were not failing their children completely, but they were coasting and not doing a good job.

[Kevin Brennan]

The hon. Lady, a former lay inspector, raises a very interesting point. When she was inspecting a school, would she have been able to give it a good or outstanding rating, but still find it to be coasting?

[Mrs Drummond]

No, under the old system it would be a failing school if it was coasting. Nowadays, it would be seen as an inadequate school. In terms of terminology, coasting is much more acceptable to parents, teachers and schools. A school cannot be said to be inadequate when children are still learning to read, write and do mathematics but are not doing as well as they should be doing. That is how I see a coasting school, but I know we are going to develop this. I have some concerns about how coasting schools will be evaluated. The Secretary of State said that they would be evaluated on the basis of more data, but I should like that evaluation to be widened slightly to include Ofsted inspections. Perhaps there could be mini-inspections to ensure that all the data were available.

Let me give an example. We consider the school of which I am a governor to be a rapidly improving school, but its current level is “requires improvement”, and the local authority sent us a warning letter last year because we had missed the overall target by just 1%. It was the maths that had let us down. However, the children have made very good progress throughout their time at the school.

Nearly all the children arrive at a level that is well below the average, and a large number are eligible for free school meals. Last year we had several level 6 results, and many level 5s. One reason for our not achieving higher results was the fact that children covered by our autism provision were included in the results. Children with special educational needs find tests very stressful, and often do not meet national standards in any event. I should like to see much more provision for such children, whether they are included in the overall results or treated differently. I should also like to see a completely different system of assessing, in particular, children with autism. Other children arrived during the school year speaking English as a foreign language, and it is difficult for teachers to raise such children to national standards. I should like to see a much more holistic approach to the categorisation of schools.

There is a new curriculum and assessment system, and schools are still settling down and working out how the new levels—exceeding expectation, at expectation or below expectation—will operate. The Department needs to help schools with those new levels, which are still quite confusing as schools develop their own methodologies. It is right for them to be able to do that, but no clear national guidelines have been provided. The results of school evaluations often hide the true picture, and I ask the Secretary of State to ensure that they are fair.

I agree that schools must become academies if their local authorities are weak. Portsmouth City Council was deemed to be the sixth worst authority in the country in this context, and during the 10 years the Liberal Democrats were in control, there was very little political will to improve educational standards. That has begun to change over the past year, under the new Conservative administration.

In many instances, when Portsmouth schools have become academies, children’s education has improved. I mentioned the Charter Academy in my maiden speech. In five years, its GCSE pass rate has risen from 3% to 85%. The local authority wanted to shut down the school, which is in an area of great deprivation, but fortunately the old head teacher saw its potential and brought in Ark Schools, which I consider to be one of the pinnacles of academy provision. I am pleased to learn that it has recently taken on some primary schools in Portsmouth as well. I recently visited Ark Ayrton with my hon. Friend the Minister for Schools. The head teacher of the primary school that it took over was extremely reluctant to allow the school to become an academy, but was forced to do so. She now says that it was the best thing that she could have done, that she wishes that she had done it a long time ago, and that she is receiving incredible support from Ark. Ark Dickens has taken over another school in my constituency—again, in an area of great deprivation—and I look forward to seeing a difference in children’s education there.

I have spoken before, outside the House, about the poor performance of my local authority. I agree with the National Union of Teachers that it should be the job of local authorities to assist schools, but where they are failing, we need an alternative, and free schools are providing that alternative. I am grateful to academies for giving some of the children in Portsmouth the education that they deserve, along with aspiration and the tools that will enable them to realise their ambitions.

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[Suella Fernandes (Fareham) (Con)]

I am pleased to follow the hon. Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Ruth Cadbury) and I congratulate hon. Friends and hon. Members on excellent maiden speeches.

Aspiration is today’s buzzword. The reason why the Conservatives won the election was that we embodied the real sentiment of that word. What does aspiration mean? For me, our education reforms are the engine of aspiration and tackle social inequality at its root cause. Our one nation party says to every child that it does not matter where they start; they can get ahead through self-empowerment, taking responsibility and hard work. Nowhere do those values ring more loudly than in our schools and in this Bill.

In 2010, after 13 years of a Labour Government supposedly supporting education, two in five 16-year-olds left school functionally illiterate or innumerate. In a country where we have some of the best schools in the world, that is a shocking disgrace. It is therefore just and essential that the Government have powers to intervene in failing and coasting schools, and those powers are enabled in this Bill. We all know what coasting schools are. They are schools in affluent areas where there is no incentive to achieve beyond a C, D or borderline pass. One reason why I am so proud to support this Bill is that we are the only party—

[Kevin Brennan]

rose—

[Suella Fernandes]

I wish to make progress. We are the only party that is courageous enough to talk honestly about failing schools. We have done that in the past by giving people, volunteers, teachers and parents a say in the solution.

[Suella Fernandes]

I will not give way. Teachers are wonderful, but endemic weaknesses in the system stop our children getting the best. I have seen at first hand how our reforms have addressed the problem.

[Kevin Brennan]

Will the hon. Lady give way on that point?

[Suella Fernandes]

No, I will not. I teamed up with a group of teachers to set up a free school in Wembley, my home town. Led by Katherine Birbalsingh, an inspiring headteacher, the school has some of the best staff in the country. As chairman of the board of governors, I can say that our aim is simple: to bring excellence and a private school quality to the inner city. I grew up in the area, and attended a state school at the beginning of my education. Teachers went on strike, discipline was poor and expectations were low. After designing the vision of a knowledge-based curriculum, we secured approval and Government funding.

[Kevin Brennan]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for giving way; she is being very generous. Earlier in her remarks, she said that everyone knows what a coasting school looks like. Would she care to name for us the coasting schools in her constituency?

[Suella Fernandes]

I will not name any schools, but I have adequately defined the features and the hallmarks of coasting schools. It is clear that further guidance will be forthcoming.

After designing the vision of a knowledge-based curriculum for the free school in which I was involved, we secured approval and funding from the Government. We recruited staff and found a building. I am proud to say that Michaela Community School opened its doors last September to 120 12-year-olds and it is transforming their lives. Many of the children come from neighbouring council estates or areas such as Harlesden and Willesden. They have the chance to aim high because of inspired and innovative teaching. If one walks through the corridors, one can hear a pin drop, because pupils are quietly learning in their classrooms. I invite Members here to join them for lunch and they will see how polite they are. If they take a bus in the area, they will spot them by their impeccable uniform. Whether it is the practice of appreciation at lunchtime or the rigorous learning, Michaela Community School has been made possible only because teachers have been set free to teach and set high expectations. It was teachers, not the state, who saw a need and took action.

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[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

It is an early hour for me to be speaking in such a debate, but I am pleased to have the opportunity to respond on behalf of the Labour Opposition to the Bill.

We have had a very good debate and a great number of contributions—in the end, we had, I think, 30 contributions from the Back Benches. We heard from the right hon. Member for Meriden (Mrs Spelman), and the hon. Member for Glasgow North West (Carol Monaghan), who is in her place, made her maiden speech. I join those who have congratulated her on it. She told us that, prior to coming to the House, she had been a physics teacher, and had then decided to retrain as a stonemason. She offered her services to the House in the massive refurbishment that is likely to have to take place in years to come. I have to tell her—she may be disappointed—that, if she is not engaged by the House of Commons as a stonemason, unfortunately the Labour party will not be in need of the services of a stonemason for the foreseeable future, and probably never in the future will we need her services. I congratulate her on her maiden speech, which was extremely effective and fluent. I hope she makes many more such contributions during her time in the House.

We heard contributions from the hon. Member for Stroud (Neil Carmichael) and from my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy), and a maiden speech from the hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (James Berry), who is not yet back in his place. I am sure messages are being sent to hon. Members in the various corners of the building and that they are working very hard to return for the winding-up speeches.

The hon. Gentleman’s maiden speech was very fluent. He reminded us that he is not the only Berry in the House. [Interruption.] I welcome him back to his place. Before he arrived, I was just saying how much the House enjoyed his maiden speech, which I congratulate him on. I understand the problem he has been encountering with his parliamentary mail as a result of not being the only Berry in the House. My right hon. Friend the Member for Rother Valley (Kevin Barron) and I share similar but not exactly identical names. On new year’s eve a couple of years ago, I was very briefly knighted by the Daily Mail online as a result of the similarities of our names. I had to explain that I was more shovelry than chivalry, and that the knighthood probably was not intended for me.

We also had a speech from my hon. Friend the Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne), who movingly told us about the GCSE English teacher who made a great contribution to his life and future prospects. My hon. Friend is right: it is the quality of teaching that counts, so research shows, more than the quality of or the differences between schools. It is the difference between teachers in schools that is even more important, and we should all seek to raise the standing and quality of the teaching workforce. As a former teacher, I often meet ex-pupils in all sorts of places. They have not yet made any complaints, but I doubt that I would ever get as great an endorsement as the one my hon. Friend gave to his English teacher. I am sure that he will be very proud of the mention he got in the House.

We had speeches from the hon. Member for South West Devon (Mr Streeter), who spoke about adoption; from the hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Alan Brown); and from the hon. Member for Hazel Grove (William Wragg), who also told us that he was a former teacher and brought his expertise to the debate. I was going to say “Llongyfarchiadau” to the hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Liz Saville Roberts), but she is not yet back in her place—that is not her fault because the wind-up speeches started early. She made an impressive maiden speech and I congratulate her on it. I also congratulate her on her mastery of the Welsh language for someone who was born in London. It is far greater than mine, even though I was born in Wales.

We also had a maiden speech from the hon. Member for Thornbury and Yate (Luke Hall), and he told us of his experience in the retail sector. We have that in common, as I was once a Saturday boy in Marks and Spencer, as well as a warehouse cleaner in Fine Fare, at 48.5p an hour, which shows how long ago it was—long before the Labour Government brought in the minimum wage.

We heard from my hon. Friend the Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell), although I must correct her slightly. She referred several times to the Bill as “draft legislation”. It is understandable why, as a new Member, she might think it is a draft Bill, and many hon. Members have pointed out that it has the lack of quality of a draft Bill, but it is the actual Bill. This is what the Government have introduced, and they are asking us to give it a Second Reading. I am not surprised that she has decided not to support it tonight, given that in her eyes it is only a draft Bill.

We had a contribution from the hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Michael Tomlinson)—I am glad to see him in his place—who told us that his wife struggles to get our proceedings on broadband in his constituency, so that she can watch his speeches. I recommend the BBC Parliament channel, where his wife could join dozens of other viewers in enjoying our proceedings. [Laughter.]

My hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Mrs Lewell-Buck) spoke passionately and with great knowledge about adoption. We heard from the hon. Member for Telford (Lucy Allan), who is not yet in her place. I am sure she will be with us shortly. We heard a very fine speech from my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall South (Valerie Vaz), who put her finger on the shortfalls in the Bill. In particular, she emphasised its illiberality, and I will return to that issue later.

We had contributions from the hon. Member for Faversham and Mid Kent (Helen Whately) and from my hon. Friend the Member for Sefton Central (Bill Esterson), who brought his great experience from the Education Committee, and pointed out that the Bill does not seem to be based on the Committee reports published earlier this year.

The hon. Member for Portsmouth South (Mrs Drummond), who is in her place, told us that she had been a lay inspector, and I very much welcome the expertise she brought to the debate. In responding to my intervention, she showed the difficulty with the vagueness of the definition of coasting. She seemed to suggest that only inadequate schools could be deemed to be coasting. Obviously, there is a lot more we need to tease out in Committee on what exactly the Government’s thinking is on this matter. A lot of hon. Members seemed to suggest that they knew what a coasting school was, but there seemed to be very different interpretations of that.

My hon. Friend the Member for Islwyn (Chris Evans) spoke passionately about the importance of education and in particular the quality of teaching, and we heard from the hon. and learned Member for South East Cambridgeshire (Lucy Frazer). My hon. Friend the Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Ruth Cadbury) emphasised that the Bill is deficient in not dealing with the key issue of teacher shortages, which we predict will be a problem in the next few years. The hon. Member for Fareham (Suella Fernandes) made a very fine speech, as did my hon. Friend the Member for Hove (Peter Kyle), who spoke passionately about schools in his constituency and the need for all of us to be passionate about school improvement.

We had a contribution from my hon. Friend the Member for City of Chester (Christian Matheson). My hon. Friend the Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting) made a brilliant speech and put his finger right on the problems in the Bill and why it is not worthy to be placed in front of the House of Commons. We had contributions from the hon. Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) and my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich South (Clive Lewis). He took the trouble to congratulate all hon. Members who have made their maiden speeches by saying: “It’s a lovely feeling when you’ve nailed it—I know what it’s like.” He did not add, “even if I say so myself.” He raised extremely important and powerful points about conflicts of interest and the use of public funds and public resources. I am sure we will hear more about that in the weeks to come.

We had a very fine speech from my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Louise Haigh). There were contributions from my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner), who spoke extremely well about schools in his constituency, and from my hon. Friend the Member for Edmonton (Kate Osamor). There were 30 contributions in all from the Back Benches and it was an excellent debate.

[Mrs Anne-Marie Trevelyan (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (Con)]

Fairer funding is vital to my area. Do the hon. Gentleman and the Labour party back the F40 fairer funding campaign that is so key to my constituents in Northumberland?

[Kevin Brennan]

I recommend to the hon. Lady the very good debate we had on this matter in Westminster Hall just before the end of the previous Parliament. I spoke for the Opposition and said we absolutely support fairer funding. If she would like to consult that debate—it is not the subject under discussion today—she will see our position in more detail.

We have had a very good debate. I will deal principally with the education part of the Bill, as my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Tristram Hunt) dealt with the clauses on adoption, but there are a few points in relation to adoption that I would like to put on the record. I understand that the solution put forward in the Bill is extremely similar to the one the Government withdrew last year when the measures were put in front of the House of Lords. If I am wrong about that, I am sure the Minister will correct us in Committee, but it does seem that this is perhaps a second bite of the cherry. We will be interested to know from Ministers, if that is the case, why they have come back with this having withdrawn similar proposals extremely recently.

We are concerned about the impact on small specialist agencies and we are also worried about those children who may not be suitable for adoption. I am disappointed that the Bill has so little to say about special guardianship, kinship care, grandparents and long-term fostering. We will want to take up those issues in Committee.



I hope that Members on both sides of the House agree that, fundamentally, all of us—heads, teachers, support staff, governors, parents and even politicians—want the best for our children. I was going to say “politicians, and even parents”, because parents’ rights have been rubbed out by the Bill, but I decided against that in favour of trying to try to establish a point of consensus at the outset of my speech. If all of us want the best for our children, however, why do the Government consistently pursue paths that are not based on evidence of what is best for our children’s education? We have reached an extraordinary state of affairs. A Bill that was cobbled together during the two weeks after the election has been presented as if it were the answer to all the educational problems in the country, although it patently is not. As the Education Committee said earlier this year,

“the Government should stop exaggerating”.

The Bill has been so rushed and so inadequately drafted that it does not even provide a definition of its central term. Its first clause, on page 1, permits intervention in “Coasting schools”. We agree with the proposition that everyone should seek to tackle underperformance in schools, even schools that may be superficially performing well. Indeed, we championed it in government through, for example, the London Challenge and national challenge programmes. We introduced sponsored academies because we saw them as one way in which entrenched under- performance could be tackled, although not the only way. However, the Government have included the word “coasting” in the Bill without being able to tell anyone what it means. They have not been able to supply draft regulations to explain it in time for this debate, and I understand that they have now announced, through the usual channels, that they will not be able to supply such regulations in time for the start of the Committee stage. Perhaps we should rename this the Adoption and Education Bill, given that Ministers will have to deal with it back to front in Committee owing to their inability to provide a definition of “coasting” in time.

This is no way in which to make law that affects the education of millions of children throughout the country. A Bill should not be introduced when the Government cannot even explain or give a definition of its central term. I am reminded of a scene in the film “The Wrong Trousers”, starring Wallace and Gromit, when Gromit has to lay the track when the train is already racing along apace. If the Government cannot define “coasting” at the point when we are debating the Bill in the Chamber, they obviously deserve their own “inadequate” rating.

Why does the Bill have nothing to say about academies? Everyone who is involved in education knows that a school is a school, and that its success is built not on the nameplate on the sign outside, but on the quality of the leadership and teaching within. If the answer to turning around a failing school is always to make it an academy, what is the answer to turning around a failing academy? As the Secretary of State acknowledged recently, there are many of them—145, at the latest count—including IES Breckland, which is managed by a for-profit provider, and which has been deemed inadequate for more than a year without its sponsor being removed. So much for the right hon. Lady’s statement that

“a day spent in special measures is a day too long where a child’s education is concerned.”

That is not the case, it would seem, when the child attends an academy that is run by a favoured foreign edu-business. A fundamental flaw at the heart of the Government’s approach is that they do not even entertain that question in the Bill.

Why do the Government not listen to the Conservative councillor David Simmonds, the chairman of the Local Government Association’s children and young people board? He recently said:

“Hundreds of schools, often in disadvantaged areas, are being turned around thanks to the intervention of local councils.

It’s clear that strong leadership, outstanding classroom teaching and effective support staff and governors are the crucial factors in transforming standards in struggling schools.

We want to see bureaucratic barriers that have for a long time prevented councils from intervening swept away…We need to ensure that we focus our resources on ensuring there are enough outstanding school leaders, rather than on structures and legal status, as it is this which makes the difference we all want to see.”

That sounds to me like common sense from a Conservative councillor at the sharp end trying to deliver a quality local education, rather than the proclamations of remote Conservative Ministers who take their cue from right-wing think tanks and policy wonks with an ideological axe to grind.

[Catherine West]

Does my hon. Friend agree that Councillor Simmonds has also added to the debate about school places, particularly in London, where he is a representative? So many parents raise with us daily, in surgeries and emails, their worries about their three and four-year-olds. Indeed, we also need to be predicting that when they turn 13 there will be a secondary school crisis.

[Kevin Brennan]

I agree with that and say to my hon. Friend that teacher recruitment and the problem she raises are serious lacunas in the Bill.

The comments I cited sound like common sense from a Conservative councillor because this Bill is not only severely undercooked, but breathtakingly illiberal and in direct opposition to the Government’s professed desire to devolve power to communities. Let us be clear about this: the Bill seeks not only to extend the power of the state, as exercised by the Secretary of State, who is not even listening, to impose its will locally, but to remove the ability of local communities to object to, or even to make representations against, the exercise of that state power. We can see that she does not like to listen because she will not listen to local communities or even to the debate in this House. It is said that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely, but what of power wielded by the state without even the right to make representations against its use, which in addition creates a duty to conform, comply, co-operate and promote the exercise of that state power? How have we reached a state of affairs in Conservative education policy where that is regarded as democratically acceptable? It would seem that not only does the Prime Minister not know the meaning of the words “Magna Carta”, as we saw on David Letterman’s TV show, but, as Tony Hancock might have put it, the poor Hungarian peasant girl did after all “die in vain”.

This is a horrible little Bill in so far as it extends to education. It is more of an election slogan than a piece of genuine education statute, written in a rush, out of a need to do something rather than the need to do the right thing. It could be so different: we could be recognising that real school improvement is based on the sort of approach taken by Sir David Brailsford, who took the Great Britain Olympic cycling team to such great heights. It could have been based on teamwork, collaboration, and a passion for excellence, success and the accumulation of marginal gains, not on a fetish with structures and policies that are unfounded in evidence. Perhaps we could have an educational equivalent of NICE—the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence—and have a national institute for clear evidence in education policy, which would put a stop to the educational quackery of Ministers, which leads to the empty “exaggeration” so heavily criticised earlier this year by the Education Committee. Then, perhaps, we could agree with a vision based on that insight I mentioned at the outset, which is that deep down we all want the best for our children.

We should therefore have a vision where we promote partnership and collaboration to raise standards, with an inspection system where quality inspectors provide challenge and support, rather than having low-quality private contractors. We could have a system where standards trump structures and where every child matters. Despite the claim in the explanatory notes that the Bill intends

“to improve education for all children”,

those in coasting or failing academies are ignored by the Bill. We could have a vision where: parents are listened to; teachers are trusted; school admissions are made fairer; special needs are taken seriously; genuine social mobility is promoted; more than the one pathway to success—GCSE, A-level and then university—is valued and promoted; more than data matter; and exams are not used as a tool to narrow education but as an instrument to accredit broad and balanced learning. We could have a system that believes in more than teaching to the test.

To be an educator or a teacher is an incredible privilege. It is one that I was fortunate enough to enjoy for many years. It is a very hard job. It is much harder, believe it or not, than being a Member of Parliament, and it is so much more than what is envisaged in this dreary Bill. To be a legislator is also a privilege, and we can do much better than this.