Mark Hoban
Main Page: Mark Hoban (Conservative - Fareham)Department Debates - View all Mark Hoban's debates with the Department for Education
(9 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Gibb
The evidence is that in those small number of examples where free schools have not succeeded, action is taken more swiftly than in local authority schools. There is evidence that many local authority schools languish in special measures year after year. That is not what is happening with the academies and free schools programme.
Mr Mark Hoban (Fareham) (Con)
21. I commend my hon. Friend on his return to the Front Bench. Free schools and academies are rightly popular with parents and many of them, such as Cams Hill in my constituency, turn children away. Will he consider giving academies and free schools the power to borrow to expand so that more parents have a choice of places for their children?
Mr Gibb
That is more an issue for the Treasury than for this policy. We are seeing more and more free schools coming on line, and they are popular. We already have 157 free schools in the pipeline, about 80 will be opening this September, and I am convinced that they will all be very successful.