Free Schools

Mike Kane Excerpts

Wednesday 19th June 2019 Westminster Hall

[Mike Kane (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)]

I am recovering from that speech.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Buck. I congratulate the hon. Member for Fareham (Suella Braverman) on securing the debate. I cannot say that I agreed with much of her speech, but she has a passionate commitment to education, even though we may view it differently. I thank all hon. Members who have taken part in the debate. It is the birthday of my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby (Melanie Onn)—can we all wish her a happy birthday? She summed up how all our schools, not just free schools, are underfunded and are having to beg scrapyards for resources; that will live long in the memory.

In this Chamber yesterday we debated whether migration should be in the history curriculum. The hon. Member for Henley (John Howell) was sitting in exactly the same place when I left yesterday, so he must have been working there overnight. He speaks regularly in Westminster Hall about his passion for the Europa School. It is just nice to see a Conservative being nice to fellow Europeans, in particular, once in a while, and I say well done to him, flippantly.

The hon. Member for Bury South (Mr Lewis) speaks passionately about his constituency and the need for a school in Radcliffe. As my wife was born in Radcliffe, I am sure it will be the subject of pillow talk later.

The right hon. Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) has shown passionate commitment to the treatment of Catholic schools. I declare an interest as the convenor of the Catholic Legislators Network in Parliament. A manifesto commitment was broken, and the Church is finding it extraordinarily difficult in bidding rounds to build the schools that it needs under the voluntary-aided system—a system that we happen to support. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will make progress with his campaign, because it is important.

We have learned today that the reality is that the current school system is broken. It has been fragmented. The current Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs threw it in the air in 2010 and let it break, and we are still trying to pick up the pieces. It has become unaccountable and is not being led by the needs of our communities. We need to fix what is broken. However, when 124 failing schools have been left stranded outside the system, and are waiting to be transferred to another chain or sponsor, something is wrong with the way we are running our school system. For far too long, parents and communities have been shut out of decisions affecting schools in their areas. The coalition Government document said that the free schools programme would

“give parents, teachers, charities and local communities the chance to set up new schools, as part of our plans to allow new providers to enter the state school system in response to parental demand”.

The reality has been very different. As my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby pointed out, research by the Sutton Trust and the National Foundation for Educational Research found that by 2018 only one in five free schools had parents involved in their inception, so the programme is not parent-led. The proportion of parent-led schools has decreased over time. What is the Minister doing to ensure that parents and communities are not being shut out of decisions about schools in their area?

Labour’s plan for a national education service will give power back to communities so that all our schools are run by the people who know them best—parents, teachers and communities. We would give local authorities the power to take on schools where no other sponsor could be found. That would ensure that no school would be left without the support of a sponsor to deliver school improvement services and provide it with a network of schools.

Despite huge expenditure on free schools, there is no evidence that they improve standards. Problems in 10 free schools, including low standards, concerns about financial oversight and governance and a failure to recruit sufficient pupils, have led to closure, planned closure or partial closure. I have previously cited the case of a school in Southwark. The council begged the Government not to go ahead but the Government funded the school, which attracted 60 pupils and closed after two years. There was no spatial planning from the authority about where it should go. It cost £2 million. We could have sent each of the 63 pupils to Eton for half the price. I do not, by the way, advocate sending pupils to Eton.

The system is failing, as that case shows, but that should come as no surprise when, like academies, free schools can employ unqualified teachers, which they do at a much higher rate than other schools. While just 2.9% of teachers in all nursery and primary schools do not have qualified teacher status, the figure for primary free schools is more than three times higher at 10.2%. Similarly, while 5.4% of teachers in all state-funded secondary schools do not hold QTS, the figure in secondary free schools is 8.9%. That is a further undermining of the teaching profession by the Government.

Currently, 91% of schools face real-terms cuts. There is no need to ask me about that; just ask the Conservative party leadership candidates, who have all made promises to fund schools fairly. We cannot allow a system to go unchallenged when it permits the education of children to become a vehicle for private profits and allows the awarding of huge executive salaries, and when there have been mounting scandals, including evidence of financial mismanagement. The Minister should seek to ban related-party transactions—business arrangements between a free school, academy or multi-academy trust and other organisations with which there are personal connections.

The National Audit Office has highlighted wasteful spending on free schools. Its report in February 2017 found that free school places are more expensive than places provided by local authorities, with a place in a primary free school opening in 2013-14 or 2014-15 costing on average 33% more than places created in the same years by local authorities. A place in a secondary free school cost 51% more than a place in a local authority secondary. The National Audit Office has also exposed a reckless use of public funding on strategic land acquisitions for free schools, costing £850 million, with officials paying “premium” prices. On average, the Government paid 19% more than official land valuations for new sites.

It is not just the provision of free schools that has been riddled with mismanagement, however. The Government’s current chaotic system means that free schools can open in areas where there is no current need for new school places. That can result in reducing funding for existing schools that are already stretched to breaking point by the Government’s cuts to funding. Evidence was provided to the Education Committee by the Institute for Education in 2015, which found that

“35% of the first four waves of free schools were in districts with no forecast need and 52% were in districts with either no forecast need or only moderate need.”

In 2017 the National Audit Office also made the observation that many free schools had been built in areas with no need for school places, leaving them struggling to get enough pupils and balance the books. Admission systems need to be joined up. They should provide oversight across the whole local area and be accountable to the public, as they currently are not. What is the Minister doing to address the current fragmented system, which has led to over-supply of school places in one area while another is under-supplied?

Although Labour has committed to ending the inefficient free school programme, if parents and staff want to go further in launching and leading their own schools we will make it possible for parents and communities to come together and ask for a new school in their area. That is why we are working with the Co-operative party to develop the idea of co-op schools as a replacement for the free school model. Ultimately, we need a school system that responds to and reflects the needs of local communities and has a vested interest in the local community rather than in private profits. It is a shame that the Government do not feel the same.