Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Debate between Lauren Sullivan and Laura Trott

Wednesday 8th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Laura Trott]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. To be clear, the Bill proposes a pay cut for nearly 20,000 teachers in future years, because it imposes national terms and conditions on teachers in academies. I have to ask: what problem are the Government trying to solve? Teachers outside of national pay scales are paid more, not less. What have they got against highly paid teachers? Why on earth are the Government coming here today and telling tens of thousands of teachers that their pay is too high? It is absurd. Levelling down seems to be this Government’s priority. The flexibilities given on terms and conditions allow academies to offer things such as a longer school day. Are the Labour Government proposing to ban that?

The explanatory notes to the Bill set a new standard in double speak when they praise the

“positive innovation and good practice in teachers’ pay and conditions in some academies”

and say that the Government want to

“ensure that local authority-maintained schools also have the opportunity to implement this”.

So what are they doing? Are they giving these same pay flexibilities to local authority schools? They are doing opposite. They are taking pay flexibilities away from academies. Do not try and make any sense of this, because it is impossible. It is entirely contradictory.

The Government are also removing the requirement for failing schools to be taken over by an academy, despite recognising the

“strong track record of multi academy trusts…turning around failing schools”.

What are they replacing it with? They mention

“regional improvement for standards and excellence (‘RISE’) teams”—

officials sitting in the Department for Education—but in another breath they said that those teams will not be involved in failing schools.

The Government have clearly totally failed; they do not understand that the reason that failing schools became academies by default is that it is the most effective intervention. If it is not mandatory, there will be lots of massive rows about what will happen to failing schools, and inevitable delays and legal challenges. What is the upshot? More time with children in failing schools not being dealt with. What is their plan for failing schools? What is their plan to protect those children from falling behind? What is the evidence that this approach is better? Have they trialled it anywhere? Why on earth are they putting this into a Bill without a clear alternative failure regime in place that evidence shows is at least as good?

The Bill is totally unacceptable and misunderstands why the academy order has been so important. I cannot say this strongly enough to the Government Benches: it needs to change.

[Dr Lauren Sullivan (Gravesham) (Lab)]

Will the right hon. Lady concede that the academisation process has meant that the off-rolling that we have seen up and down this country has led to the crisis in SEND? That is the whole point of how the academy system has, apparently, improved standards. It has not—it has decreased inclusion. Will she please show us how the academy system has helped our children who are now stuck at home because they have been off-rolled?

[Laura Trott]

I am glad that the hon. Lady has confirmed that the Labour party is, indeed, anti-academy.

The Bill goes on and on—rampant centralisation in search of a cause. Why are the Government making all schools follow the national curriculum? Where is the evidence that there is a problem? Why are they putting in place sweeping powers to direct academies on unspecified things? What possible justification do they have for that? The notes say that it is to prevent “unreasonable use of power”. I say, look in the mirror.