Academies Bill [Lords]

Kwasi Kwarteng Excerpts

Monday 19th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Kwasi Kwarteng (Spelthorne) (Con)]

Does the hon. Gentleman believe that the content of the Bill differs significantly from legislation produced and speeches made by the former Prime Minister, the former Member for Sedgefield?

[Tom Blenkinsop]

The point is that we do not know. Because of the pace at which we are dealing with the Bill, we do not know what some elements of it actually mean. We have no definitive evidence. Members on both sides of the House have gone into some detail, but have not provided enough specificity for us to discuss it.

Many support staff, unlike teachers, are not paid during the school holidays. The SSSNB was given cross-party support in the Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Act 2009, and has a broad range of school, local authority, religious and employee representation. The Bill would effectively transfer workers to the private sector, unilaterally, without due consultation or consideration. It has the potential to undermine the previous consensual approach of all parties to the creation of the SSSNB. That is certainly not an indication of the “new politics”.

However, despite my obvious criticism—and if we are to take the coalition Government at their word—we can agree that there may be merits in widening the educational family beyond the tried and tested mainstream of the LEA. In the past, academies have had a variety of sponsors. Some, to which I have referred, have had a particular religious conviction. Some have been part of higher education—for instance, Teesside university, which is committed to becoming a partner in the sponsorship of Freeborough college, in the East Cleveland part of my constituency. The NHS is also involved, but most sponsors have come from commercial business, although given the coalition’s recent pace and predilection, the NHS may join the long list of private enterprises. Commercial business sponsors range from Lord Harris, of carpet warehouse fame, to companies such as the United Learning Trust, which has links with major public schools, and firms such as Vodafone, Barclays and Honda (UK).

If representatives of one side of society and commerce can be partners in schools, what about those on the other side? I should be fascinated to hear the Minister’s reaction to a new concept that I want to float. I simply suggest that the Trades Union Congress, or individual TUC unions, be encouraged to set up a trade union school or schools. We might also ask representatives of the co-operative movement—an organisation that was dedicated to mutualism, harmony and fairness centuries before Cameron’s “big society” road to Damascus—whether they would be interested in being part of a wider educational family.

The trade unions have a long history of propagation of adult education through institutions such as Ruskin college in Oxford. The TUC still has its own education department, and individual trade unions, with TUC encouragement and help from local learning and skills councils, have developed successful and widespread union learning campuses in workplaces where they have recognition agreements. The co-operative movement is historically associated with early socialist Sunday schools designed to give children a broader view of the world than could be obtained through Victorian churches, and even today it helps to sponsor educational development in parts of the developing world where it sources food for consumers.

The country, and even the coalition Government, can live with co-operative forms of enterprise. The Government could even float the concept as a way of managing former central or local state provision. If a state can ensure our children’s education with car dealers, carpet salesmen and other wider commerce, why should it not do the same with the democratically elected expression of working people, the trade union movement?

I look forward to the Minister’s response to the points that I have made.

--- Later in debate ---

[Charlotte Leslie]

The right hon. Gentleman has made an interesting point, which I will take on board.

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

The Soviet Union dissolved in 1991, but my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State was talking about comparisons between 1999 and today. I just wanted to put that on the record.

[Charlotte Leslie]

My hon. Friend makes a point that I was not going to make for the sake of making progress in my comments, but I thank him very much for that clarification.

Some clarification is required in respect of the Bill as well. There is not some kind of compulsion whereby politicians are driving schools to claim these freedoms. The Bill simply seeks to lift the lid on the ambition, desire and passion that already exists, such as in outstanding schools whose head teachers have said to me, “Isn’t it amazing that if I was at a bad school I’d be able to get the freedoms I want to run my school, but we are just doing too well to have them?” The Bill removes that perverse incentive, and it enables parents and—to mention a group that we have not discussed enough in our debate—teachers to act: it enables parents and ideologically driven teachers who want to help the most vulnerable in our society by starting small schools, along the lines of the American charter schools, in those communities that most need them.

Many of the people who express an interest about this subject to me are those very teachers. They are the kinds of teachers who may be involved in Teach First and the Future Leaders programme. They are people who desperately want to improve the lot of those children who are on free school meals in the most deprived parts of our communities. It deserves a little more recognition in this debate that the Bill aims to lift the lid on passion, belief and desire that already exist to improve education. It is not about compulsion; that is not what we on these Benches are all about.

I understand the concern felt on the Opposition Benches that it is the good schools that will benefit from academy status. I would share those concerns if very substantial amounts of capital investment were to be going into those very good schools, but that is not the case. The good news is that there can be improvement without enormous injections of taxpayers’ money; after 13 years, that obviously comes as very good news to all Members. That improvement will allow good head teachers who lead outstanding schools to have the freedom to innovate, and also to offer their innovations to struggling schools. One aspect of the Bill that I particularly welcome is that it will not only encourage but require good schools that take on academy status to link up, not with outstanding schools as the shadow Secretary of State rather oddly implied, but with the weakest schools that most need that help. That point needs reiterating.

Another aspect of the Bill that should be highlighted is the fact that, for the first time, academy proprietors and sponsors will be subject to freedom of information legislation. Freedom of information has, of course, made the past year and a bit extremely rocky for this House, but, all in all, I think it is an extremely good thing and I am extremely pleased that that kind of public accountability will apply to academies and free schools so that we have a proper test of whether they are actually doing what we want and expect them to do.

I was around in the corridors of this House—although not as a Member, and nor, alas, in the corridors of power—when the Education and Inspections Act 2006 was making its progress as a Bill, and I remember that when the concept of trust schools was first floated there was a huge amount of sincere panic on the Labour Benches that that would open the floodgates and that it would be the end of the educational world and we would all be going to hell in a handcart because local authorities would not be able to control schools as they had previously. Now, four years on, has the world ended? No. Four years on, has trust status enabled Orchard school in my constituency to link up as a trust with the Bridge learning campus, which is driving very good improvements? Yes it has. Therefore, I say to Opposition Members that there was a lot of panic about the 2006 Act, and I also suspect that a lot of what is being said now is conjecture and expressions of fear about the liberation of forces that are not Government forces. I hope that alleviates some of the concerns among those on the Opposition Benches.

It is important not to see this Bill in isolation. We cannot solve everything through structural reform alone. It is certainly part of the equation, but we need to remember that there are far more measures in the coalition manifesto that tackle standards issues—and standards issues in respect of struggling, weak schools. If we were to see this Bill alone as the sole coalition offering on education, some of the concerns expressed by Opposition Members might carry more weight, but it does not stand alone. We also have reforms for improving discipline in struggling schools, which is one of the things that makes teaching in such schools so very difficult. Also, the pupil premium will send money directly to those children who most need it; of course there is work to be done on that, but that is what this House exists to do.

One development that I find particularly concerning, and scandalous, is that over the past 10 years pupil referral units have become repositories for children with special educational needs at the same time as special schools have been closed. I know no one wanted that to come about, but the House must address that tendency, and I hope the added responsibility for new academies to take care of children with SEN will improve the situation. I also hope that some of the measures we will be taking forward will look at pupil referral units alongside other society and voluntary organisations that can perform that function better.