Academies Bill [HL]

Lord Blackwell Excerpts

Monday 7th June 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blackwell]

My Lords, first, I should draw attention to my interests as chairman of a company involved in construction and maintenance of schools under Building Schools for the Future and the academies programme.

I join others in welcoming my noble friend Lord Hill to the Dispatch Box and congratulating him on introducing the Bill. It may not be revolutionary, but I think that it will be seen as something of a landmark, because the core idea of decentralising from Whitehall to the head teacher and the governors is long overdue. Like the former Prime Minister in 2005, I look forward to the time when all state schools are independent, state-funded schools, able to operate under their own aegis.

The truth is, however, that during the past decade, despite the continued development of academies, the overall thrust of education policy has been huge centralisation—what the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, called the bureaucratic model. In truth, local authorities no longer run or manage maintained schools. They have long since lost that power. Maintained schools are de facto controlled from the centre through targets, plans, the imposition of ideologies and the curriculum, much of which I fear has not been advantageous to schools and much of which, such as the removal of the need for a language qualification at GCSE and the move toward single sciences, has been to the detriment of the quality of education in this country.

It is time that we moved away from the bureaucratic model to embrace fully the idea that the best people to run schools are head teachers. As my noble friend Lord Baker said, there are huge benefits from giving freedoms to schools to deliver what parents want, and the innovation of which my noble friend Lord Lucas spoke. As others have said, that includes full control over their budget, more control over the curriculum and teaching staff and, most importantly, the quality and ethos that is so important to the way in which schools are run and pupils perform.

As others have said, we know what makes the difference between a good and a bad school. It is primarily about the quality of the head teacher—their leadership and their freedom to run the school in the way that they think best to motivate their staff and inspire their children. My complaint is not that we are going too fast; it is that it has taken more than 20 years to get here from the first conception of academies.

With decentralisation, of course there needs to be proper governance and accountability but, to my mind, the best accountability is to parents via choice and competition. That is what we must focus on as we go through the Bill.

Rather than repeating those arguments, let me deal with some of the concerns that I have heard raised in this debate, on which I would like to put my slant. First, the concern has been raised that competition benefits only middle-class or pushy parents. The reality is that it is the forces of competition which raise standards for everyone. That is why markets work. If it is not too superficial, it may be helpful to make the comparison with supermarkets. When supermarkets compete, it is the active shoppers, the people who shop around, who ensure that all shoppers benefit from competitive prices and qualities. Although schools may be very different from supermarkets, they will work in the same way in terms of the active parents—the active shoppers—driving up standards through competition which benefit all children in the area. As others have referred to, the good schools then become beacons of excellence which other schools have to emulate to maintain their standing and attract pupils.

As others have, I wonder about Clause 6, which appears to restrict schools to recruit mainly from the area in which they are based. Competition will clearly work best if parents have the widest possible choice of schools and that schools doing well can draw in from surrounding areas and expand, while those schools not competing as well and not offering what parents want are exposed. We do not want poor schools left to exploit a local monopoly without parents having the choice of taking their children to a better academy down the road, where the head teacher has managed to raise standards and deliver better results.

The other requirement of competition is that when schools fail, they are taken over and different management is put in place. I am encouraged by the Minister's comments that the programme will continue to address poor as well as successful schools, but if an academy does not perform—no doubt, over time, some academies will not perform—will the same triggers operate in terms of requiring a change in the management of a failing academy as a failing maintained school?

The second concern that I have heard raised is that academies will not benefit disadvantaged areas, but we have heard many contributions—notably from the noble Lord, Lord Harris, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Lincoln and even the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan of Drefelin—pointing out how successful academies have been in raising standards in underperforming areas. We should all take the point of view that we will not accept that schools in poor areas have to have low standards. There are many examples that show how schools with the right leadership can achieve outstanding results in even some of the most deprived areas, so academies are not just for the leafy suburbs but are for disadvantaged areas as well. I welcome the Minister’s assurance that those schools will still be part of the programme, and I also welcome the pupil premium, which is the additional answer to those who fear that those schools will be left behind.

The third concern is that allowing successful schools to convert to academies will open up a two-tier system, apparently because there is a fear that those schools will then get better. The noble Baroness, Lady Morgan of Drefelin, was particularly concerned about this. I do not quite understand why it is such a terrible outcome if good schools get even better. We should not seek equality in education by holding good schools back. We want every school to be the best it can be and then to challenge every other school to match the best.

I would like government policy to go even further in due course in restoring the pursuit and celebration of excellence in education. In particular, we should ensure that the brightest children from whatever background have equal access to the best education based on ability and merit. One of the saddest outcomes of the past quarter-century is that social mobility has declined. We have reduced the opportunity for the brightest children from modest backgrounds to reach the top in their chosen field. We talk about special needs, but the one group that is often not considered in special needs is that of the few per cent of children who are very able, who often benefit from the standards and motivation of a high-performing peer group. Those from the poorest backgrounds often benefit most from moving into an environment that stretches their aspirations. Those children now too often face being trapped in poor local schools. This is important not just because of the tragedy for those bright children if they are not able to achieve their potential, but because we also need to recognise that as a country, we rely heavily on the top performers in every field to be our future leaders, whether in arts, science or business. It is a poor deal for the country, as well as for the individual, to waste that talent.

The solution to this problem of poor achievement by the brightest children and the loss of social mobility is not to legislate to force top universities and professions to lower their entry standards. Instead, we need to give the most able children the chance to achieve and compete on merit. The only fair way to do that is to include in the school system the choice for those who want it to apply to a highly academic school where entry is on ability and merit, not on ability to pay. That is the sort of school—direct grant schools, for example—that many of us here, in truth, benefited from but, sadly, have allowed to decline over the past quarter-century. I should be clear that I am not suggesting a mass return to forced selection. Most schools should remain mixed-ability entry, and that is clearly the objective of the Bill, but we foster excellence in football and we celebrate excellence in music and arts, yet somehow we deny the pursuit of excellence for the talented group in academic schools. The state system should provide for those children rather than only independent schools for fee-paying pupils being able to provide that kind of quality academic education. I welcome the fact that at least existing selective schools are protected in the Bill. The Minister will be relieved that I will not press for the Bill to go further, but it is something that the Government will need to come back to on another day. In the mean time, I welcome the Bill and look forward to supporting its passage through the House.