Education Bill

Lord Young of Norwood Green Excerpts

Wednesday 26th October 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Touhig]

My Lords, I will not detain the House for long. I was going to say a few words about the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, but the noble Lord, Lord Alton, has covered the points that I would have made. In an exchange with the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, the other day I said that those of us of faith and those who are secularists—such as him—have to coexist. We have to try to find ways through the problem about the Isle of Wight, which he has properly highlighted. However, that is perhaps better decided by local people than by putting something in the Bill.

I shall say a few words in response to the three amendments of my noble friend Lady Massey of Darwen. The Bill provides that where a new school is required, the local authority must consider the establishment of an academy or a free school before consideration is given to any other type of school. From the point of view of the Catholic education authorities, that would be a disadvantage. In any entirely new academy or free school, priority can be given to children of faith in relation to only 50 per cent of the places in cases of oversubscription, and that would clearly be a disadvantage. The Bill therefore sought to compensate for and counter that disadvantage by making provision to allow voluntary-aided schools to be established more easily.

The amendment moved by my noble friend would effectively limit the opportunity to establish new voluntary-aided schools. That would be a handicap, especially where there is a demand for them—and there is certainly demand in parts of London where there has been a rapid growth in the Catholic population in recent years. The other disadvantage of my noble friend’s amendment is that, as I understand it, if it were part of the Bill, academies and free schools would be the only schools that could be established, and I do not think that that is the policy of our party.

[Lord Young of Norwood Green]

My Lords, I rise to speak primarily to Amendment 70A, which was moved by my noble friend Lady Hughes of Stretford. I must admit that it is a curious irony that a Government who often proclaim their belief in localism and plurality should seek to impose a prescriptive solution on new schools. I was recently looking at the range of schools that, for instance, the Church of England provides in London. There is a wide variety of about 150 schools; some are academies and some are community schools. Although academies are very much the flavour of the day, they are not—and surely should not be—the only solution. It would be dangerous to assume that there is only one solution.

I should perhaps declare an interest as a governor of my local community primary school, and as someone who participates in the Lords outreach programmes and visits a wide range of schools. One can see successful academies and one can see successful community schools. My noble friend is absolutely right to say that Amendment 70A is not anti-academy by any means. It sends the message that the issue should be left to local determination. I should be very interested to hear the Minister’s response.

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

My Lords, at the heart of the Government’s proposals and this debate is the question of how we obtain greater school autonomy, strike the balance between wanting to pursue that objective and raising educational standards, and resolve the tension that can clearly exist between that and localism. Perhaps I may pick up on the point about the Government thinking that there is only one model of provision, involving only free schools and academies. The whole purpose of the policy on free schools is to have as varied a range of types of schools as we can. That is also the case with academies. Studio schools, UTCs and bilingual schools are thereby emerging, many with a lot of local involvement. I recognise that that is slightly different from the point being made about local authority involvement. However, it is not the case that the Government are seeking a one-size-fits-all kind of school provision. We want variety but we are also keen to encourage schools that demonstrate greater autonomy, and that is what lies behind this clause.

We know that results from the academies programme begun by the previous Government provide evidence for this. Research from the National Audit Office last year reported that academies have increased the rate of improvement in GCSE results compared with trends in their predecessor schools. The latest provisional GCSE results data show that sponsored academies are still improving at a faster rate than other maintained schools. In the latest year, they are improving at more than double the rate of other maintained schools.

This evidence began to emerge some time ago and it is fair to say that we are not the first Government to seek to respond to it. We discussed in this House the previous Government’s education White Paper in 2005. That White Paper, and the Education and Inspections Act 2006 that followed it, set up the current system for establishing new schools. Again, I think it is fair to say that the system introduced under that legislation was designed to promote more autonomous schools and to reduce the number of new community schools. Therefore, that approach was established by the previous Government, although I accept that we are taking it further with our proposals.