Education Bill

Debate between Nick Gibb and Sam Gyimah

Wednesday 11th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Sam Gyimah (East Surrey) (Con)]

I wish to speak to new clause 1, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Bedford (Richard Fuller), which I wholly support. It suggests that we should be able to disapply the provisions of the Bill, especially when we are trying to help very disadvantaged children. I think that all Government Members, including those who were involved in Committee, agree that that is ultimately our purpose, although we may not always agree on the means.

The arguments that my hon. Friend has put forward are right. On being radical, I think that the Government can go forward in helping poor and disadvantaged children. Currently, there are more than 1,000 failing schools across the country. Less than 35% of children get five GCSEs at grades A* to C, including in English and maths. Less than 55% of primary school children reach the expected level at key stage 2. All we can say—most Government Members agree—is that too many children are being let down.

If we are serious about reforming our education system so that it has a bright future—and most politicians talk about that in their election literature when they say that they are committed to education—we have to do it now. We have the opportunity and we must take it now. That is why I urge the Minister in my new clause 13 to consider disapplying the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations in the case of failing schools. Some might consider that an unusual new clause. I firmly believe in employment rights, for people who work in the private sector as much as for people who work in the public sector, but when a school fails, it is often because the teachers have let the children down. We should consider whether all those terms and conditions should be transferred across.

I wish to make two further points. First, we must consider the cost involved in transferring across all the terms and conditions, which can add up to about £100,000 for the local authority and the Government. Secondly, we must also consider the bureaucracy involved in doing that. Of course we have to go through a consultation process, unless that has been agreed with all the staff before the academy opens, but I think that it is important that we give the Secretary of State the power to disapply those provisions when they think it necessary to do so. That is because there is only one objective here: we want to ensure that our duty is not to the teachers who may have failed the students, but primarily to the children. This is a probing new clause, and I urge the Minister to consider it seriously.

[Mr Gibb]

I will speak first to new clause 1, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Bedford (Richard Fuller), and new clause 13, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for East Surrey (Mr Gyimah), who both served, alongside my hon. Friend the Member for Stevenage (Stephen McPartland), on the Bill Committee. I welcome the strong support for the Government’s expansion of the academies programme that lies behind both new clauses. There are now more than 650 academies, more than two thirds of which have opened since September 2010, and that is equivalent to more than two every working day. I am proud that the coalition has achieved this pace of expansion in its first year in office. I believe that it is vital to ensure that the benefits of academy status are used to address underperformance in our education system.

As my hon. Friends will know from their scrutiny in Committee, the Bill includes measures to strengthen the Secretary of State’s power to intervene in underperforming schools. We are strengthening those powers to ensure that we can take the necessary action to invite an effective academy sponsor to transform a school where children are receiving an unacceptably low standard of education and the governing body and the local authority are reluctant to intervene.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bedford mentioned exclusions, special educational needs and, in particular, children with autism. I welcome his support for the Green Paper on special educational needs and disability. He is right to raise those issues. I, along with officials, recently met the Special Educational Consortium to discuss the matter. I look forward to continued discussion with it on the Bill as it progresses through the House and another place. He rightly highlighted the fact that even with the Bill’s new provisions, many schools will still not be eligible for intervention, despite performing below the minimum floor standard. Ofsted’s inspection judgments in recent years have not always paid sufficient attention to the quality of teaching when identifying schools that require special measures or a notice to improve. I welcome the fact that the changes to the inspection framework proposed by Ofsted start to address that issue.

I share my hon. Friend’s concern that no excuses should be made for low standards. He may be right that the current proposals do not go far enough in allowing my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State to intervene swiftly in schools that perform below the minimum floor standard. However, we need to be sure that, in any changes we make, there are appropriate safeguards in place for schools to ensure that the Secretary of State is not left open to legal challenge that might continue to frustrate the conversion process.

On new clauses 1 and 13, I sympathise with my hon. Friends’ desire to ensure that unnecessary hurdles do not get in the way of the efficient transformation of poorly performing schools. However, there is a need to ensure appropriate safeguards. We have been convinced by the weight of opinion across both Houses that appropriate local consultation should inform conversion to academy status. The ability to disapply such requirements when converting poorly performing schools, as proposed in new clause 1, is not something we are seeking. For those reasons I cannot accept the new clause.