Education and Adoption Bill

Neil Carmichael Excerpts

Wednesday 16th September 2015 Commons Chamber

[Pat Glass]

I was never wholly convinced by the academies programme of the previous Labour Government, but as an educational professional—who worked under London challenge, on which I echo with many of the points raised by the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr Burrowes) but would add that the relentless refusal to accept failure was a major part of it—I understood that there were schools that had consistently failed where everything had been tried and where something new was needed. Ultimately, I took the view that it was important for the children, parents and communities that had been consistently failed that I gave the programme the benefit of the doubt. I at least understood the rationale behind it, but the policy of the coalition Government and this Government of wholesale academisation and the establishment of free schools where there is no basic need and purely on the basis of ideology is both damaging and a colossal waste of public money.

I was a member of the previous Select Committee on Education, and we carried out a major piece of work on academies and free schools. We found absolutely no evidence whatsoever that academies improved standards more than maintained schools or improved standards faster. When I say that we found no evidence, I mean that we looked for it. We looked really hard, but it simply does not exist and it is wrong of the Prime Minister, Education Ministers and Conservative Members constantly to over-claim and exaggerate on behalf of academies.

We have seen a wholesale change in the educational structure of this country and if there is no evidence to back up such an approach, it must be based purely on ideology. In what seems the Government’s rush to academise at any cost, schools have been handed over to any academy chain, although some are beginning to fail and are having to be handed on again. The views and wishes of parents, staff, pupils and communities have counted for nothing. A number of high-profile campaigns against academisation by schools and communities in which there is clear evidence, backed up by Ofsted, that those schools were improving and had the capacity to improve further, have simply been swatted away by the current Secretary of State and the former Secretary of State, now the Lord Chancellor, as though they counted for nothing.

I know a number of things as an educationalist who worked in education for 25 years, and schools will not thrive without the support of their communities, yet the Government have simply disregarded the views of countless communities because, as we all know, the current and former Secretaries of State have such a breadth of knowledge and experience in education that they clearly know best. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan) when he talks about the sense of infallibility that seems to exist in the Department for Education.

The Government are taking away even the pretence of any need to consult local communities when academisation is proposed. I believe that that is wrong on all kinds of levels. Some of our academies and academy chains are doing a fabulous job, but I have concerns about academy chains, as the Schools Minister knows because we have debated them many times. Some of them are doing a really good job, but there is something dark and mysterious in many of these organisations. They exist on public money but there is little public transparency and very little public accountability.

As a member of the Select Committee, I tried really hard to follow some of that money. We were told constantly that the chains publish accounts once a year, but there was very little detail in them. I tried to find out how much money is being skimmed off the top of the funding given to schools to cover matters such as administration or to go into contracts linked to the members of those boards. I tried to find out how much was being paid on salaries, but with the exception of one person—the one who earns the most, which can mean more than £350,000—I could not find out anything. I could not find out how many people were paid more than £100,000, more than £200,000 or more than £300,000. I could not find out how many were paid a penny less than the one person whose salary had to be reported on. Local authorities are under a duty to transfer public money to schools and only hold back a tiny percentage of funding for the delivery of statutory education duties. There is no such legal duty on chains and it would appear to me, in the absence of any evidence to the contrary, that they are making large with it.

As a member of the Select Committee, in 2013 I visited the Netherlands, where the former Secretary of State got many of his ideas on academies and academy chains. At the time, the Netherlands were reeling from a scandal involving one of their school boards, which are very similar to our academy chains, that had gone bankrupt. What was causing the concern was not just the bankruptcy of the school board but the slow recognition that when a school board, like an academy chain, goes bankrupt, the assets of the school do not return to the public purse. They belong to the creditors. That means the school, its whiteboards, its laptops and, more importantly, the land on which it was built—and this is really important in places such as London where land is short. Creditors would rush in quickly, knock the school down and sell the land. The children and the community were left with no school and had to fall back on local authorities that did not have the resources to deal with them. The failure of an academy chain in this country is not a fantasy; I think it will be just a matter of time. The assets of those academy chains—of those former public schools that were paid for with money from our taxpayers—will drift off and belong to whoever the creditors are.

I am therefore asking the Government to think again and to consider the whole premise on which their academisation programme is built, the legal and financial basis, and the links with local authorities, children, families and communities. I ask them carefully to consult local communities when they are thinking about changing the nature of the school. A school is really important to a community, as we see when we try to close them down. Communities care about their schools and we ought to give them at least the opportunity to be consulted.

I would like the Government to give the local community the right of appeal to an independent body against the Secretary of State’s decision rather than just assuming that the Secretary of State is infallible. I want only sponsors with a proven record of educational success to be allowed to run academies—now there is a new and great idea. I want to give the chief inspector of schools the explicit right to inspect not only academies and free schools but the chains that manage those schools. This is public money, and to do anything else is not only foolish in the short and the long term but a waste of public funding.

[Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for inviting me to contribute to this very important debate. I supported the academies programme long before the last Government were elected. I thought that the Labour Government were right to create academies, and it is also right for the current Government to continue with that programme. It is my firm belief that a system that encourages autonomy, focuses on good leadership and draws attention to the ability of schools to work together is all about self-improvement and improvement in general. We should salute and welcome that, and my comments on the proposed new clauses and amendments should be seen in that context.

The current direction of travel is to create more academy trusts and to make sure that each one contains a range of schools that, first and foremost, meet pupils’ needs. My vision of a multi-academy trust is one that has a university technical college, ordinary secondary schools and a group of primary schools. In short, a MAT should offer a wide range of support so that a pupil can move around it, getting the education he or she needs and, above all, deserves. That is the very important direction we should be heading in.

--- Later in debate ---

[James Berry (Kingston and Surbiton) (Con)]

In Kingston and Surbiton, we have the two Tiffin schools. One is just outside my constituency, and one is in it. They are excellent examples of grammar schools, and I would certainly support maintaining them. Does my hon. Friend agree that schools can create a variety of educational models, albeit non-selective ones, within the free schools system? Those models follow the traditional academic grammar school route without the selective element, which is a successful way of preserving the grammar school ethos without the problems of selectivity.

[Neil Carmichael]

I thank my hon. Friend for his very helpful intervention. That point justifies the free schools programme, which is all about bringing in choice and making sure that parents and staff can make decisions about their school, including about having a school of that type.

On that point, the shadow Minister quite rightly referred to what the New Schools Network has said about parent involvement. I have written about that in the past, and I am pleased that the idea has now been given more traction. On the particular proposal of empowering parents to take action about the leadership of a school, I would say that they should do so only if the very highest threshold is met.

[Kevin Brennan]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his comments about parents. Is he at all concerned about the way in which the Bill sweeps away the right of parents to have a say on the future of their local schools?

[Neil Carmichael]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question, because it goes to the heart of the Bill. The Bill is largely about schools in which action needs to be taken to get them to a better place. Such action has to be taken urgently, it must be about leadership and governance and, where necessary, it must take the form of intervention. As I have said, the principal focus should be on whether pupils benefit from delay or from action to take their school to a better place.

I do not want to say that parents should not be consulted, because I think they should. For example, there is a strong role for parent teacher associations to play in the interface with the community about a school’s future. I spoke to the chief executive of PTA UK just a few days ago, and I was struck by the role that PTAs can play in such dialogue. When a school is failing, however, we must take action. That is implicit in the Bill. Action is absolutely necessary for any failing school.

[Peter Kyle]

The hon. Gentleman mentioned meeting a representative of PTA UK, but is he aware that it submitted evidence to the Public Bill Committee? It stated that the Bill

“signals to parents that their views aren’t to be considered and positions them as unimportant despite the prevailing research that confirms their engagement as important to their child’s education.”

I invite him to comment.

[Neil Carmichael]

It is absolutely right for there to be engagement, but I think that we are confusing two different things. I would have thought that PTA UK was talking about engagement with the school more generally. I am referring to the issues in the Bill and the specific question of whether intervention should be swift and effective, and the degree of consultation that should be involved.

Of course there should be consultation and the Bill makes clear the role of regional schools commissioners, who should consult fairly widely. The Education Committee will look into the role and capacity of the regional schools commissioners. One question that we will ask is how that consultation process is undertaken. I do not think that that point is at variance with the spirit of the Bill.

On amendment 12, we cannot have coasting schools and when we see them we must act. In the last Parliament, the chief inspector produced a powerful report about the long tail of underachievement, which detailed the problem that many schools carry on coasting without being noticed. It is striking that many of those schools are in rural and coastal areas. That tells us that the mechanism is not in place to properly check what a coasting school is doing. I therefore believe that amendment 12 would take us in the wrong direction.

A coasting school is a very bad place to be. If a school is coasting along then, even if everybody thinks it is doing okay, it is not doing its job properly. It is therefore a real challenge for the teachers and governors to move it forward. Of course, we need to discuss in some detail the definition of a coasting school, but if the teachers and governors of a coasting school are not moving it forward, we must act. I therefore do not believe that amendment 12 is appropriate.

[Kevin Brennan]

Just for clarity, amendment 12 is consequential to new clause 1, which would replace the Government’s version of a coasting school with the Opposition’s provision. The amendment would not sweep away the need for action to be taken when schools have problems of that kind.

[Neil Carmichael]

According to the “Member’s explanatory statement”, amendment 12 would

“remove the clause that establishes that ‘coasting’ schools shall be eligible for intervention.”

That is what I read, and I do not think that that should be the direction of travel. However, I take the hon. Gentleman’s point about its connection to new clause 1.

The important point to make about amendment 13 is that if a school is in trouble, appeals from the governing body, which is probably responsible for a large part of those difficulties, ought to be put into perspective. Instead, a governing body should recognise that it has a duty and responsibility to participate in improving the school.

The Bill has a lot going for it. We need to address the issue of school leadership. In my judgment, we need more multi-academy trusts because they provide the right framework for schools to help each other and pursue self-improvement. It is critical that we focus on coasting schools and use powers to ensure that they stop coasting and, instead, do what they are supposed to be doing, which is raising the standard of delivery for pupils.

[John Pugh (Southport) (LD)]

I rise in support of new clauses 3 and 9, and to make a few remarks about amendment 11.

What bothers me about this legislation is the issue of consultation, which was alluded to by the hon. Member for Stroud (Neil Carmichael), and parental consultation in particular. That is a long-term anxiety for me, because I am aware of local schools in my constituency that have been subjected to horrific bullying by academy brokers to convert to academies, and I would not wish that replicated anywhere else.