Academies Bill [Lords]

Nigel Evans Excerpts

Monday 26th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Dr John Pugh (Southport) (LD)]

I beg to move amendment 8, page 3, line 11, at end insert—

‘(1A) In the case of a member or members of a governing body objecting to an application under subsection (1), there shall be a ballot of the parents of children enrolled at the school, subject to regulations laid down by the Secretary of State.’.

[The First Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Mr Nigel Evans)]

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following: Amendment 78, page 3, line 11, at end insert—

‘(1A) Before making an application for an Academy order, the governing body shall consult relevant parties on whether to make such an application.

(1B) The Secretary of State shall issue guidance as to how governing bodies should conduct such a consultation with parents, pupils, teaching and non-teaching staff and their representatives, neighbouring schools and the local authority and such other parties as he may think appropriate and such guidance must also specify the information to be made available to consultees in relation to the proposed arrangements for Academy status.’.

Amendment 4, in clause 5, page 4, line 11, leave out ‘such’ and insert—

(a) the local education authority,

(b) the teachers at the school,

(c) the pupils,

(d) the pupils’ parents,

(e) such persons as in their opinion represent the wider community, and

(f) such other’.

Amendment 18, page 4, line 11, at end insert ‘including the local authority for that area.’.

Amendment 77, page 4, line 14, leave out ‘may take place before or after an Academy order, or’ and insert ‘must take place before’.

Amendment 9, page 4, line 14, leave out ‘an Academy order, or’.

Amendment 86, page 4, line 14, leave out subsection (3).

Amendment 10, page 4, line 15, at end add—

‘(4) Consultation on Academy status should not be led by any member of a governing body who may benefit financially as a result of conversion to Academy status or whose salary, terms or conditions may be affected by such conversion.’.

New clause 1—Reversion of Academies to maintained status—

(1) This section applies to any former maintained school which has been converted into an Academy under section 4.

(2) The governing body must make arrangements for the holding of a ballot of parents under this section if at least 10 per cent of the parents of pupils at the Academy request it to do so.

(3) The purpose of a ballot under this section is to determine whether the parents of pupils at the Academy want the Academy to be converted into a maintained school.

(4) If the result of the ballot is in favour of conversion, the Secretary of State must—

(a) revoke the Academy order, and

(b) take such other steps as he considers necessary to convert the Academy into a maintained school.’.

[Dr Pugh]

When were elected this May—God, it seems years ago—we all knew that there was some prospect that politics in this place might never be quite the same again. Many of us, frankly, welcomed that. The huge and welcome influx of new Members gave us all hope that things could possibly be different. That, along with the odd arithmetic of this place and the challenging nature of the country’s problems, seemed to dictate that the way ahead would be through rational consensus and for a while—all too short a while—it appeared that tribalism and command-and-control politics were dead; the Chamber and Committees would be important and policy would have to be evidence-led, much to the disappointment of the media, whose preference is always for a good scrap.

What do we have with amendments to the Bill, however? We have the spectacle of Ministers who have already told us that they will accept no amendment, period, and the sight of Whips new and old cracking their knuckles off-stage and perfecting basilisk-like stares in the mirror, persuading people not to vote for amendments such as amendment 8 and others that, it could be argued, align with the spirit and improve the detail of the Bill. Paradoxically, they are doing that because they assume that is how coalition politics work. I say paradoxically, because the amendment-denying Ministers in front of us, whose agents the Whips are, seem to be the most mature, civilised and benign advocates of the new politics. I personally cannot associate myself with the recent comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron); nor can I afford to drink in the Boot and Flogger. I am simply moving an amendment with which the Committee should be comfortable and, frankly, which any Member of any party can and should be free to support.

In the event of a governing body being divided, amendment 8 obliges a school to hold a ballot if a governor or a minority of governors object to an application for academy status. It therefore provides a restraint on a motivated group of governors misrepresenting or riding roughshod over parents’ wishes.

Mr Evans, you might recall that under Mrs Thatcher, in the Education Reform Act 1988, a parental ballot was an essential precondition of the change to grant-maintained status in any school. There were votes across the country on those matters. Sadly, subsequent Governments seem to have lost interest in the views of parents and, in my view, have disempowered parents, with one exception. Tony Blair insisted that the change from grammar school status required a parental ballot and that condition survives and is effectively incorporated in this Bill.

Can anyone in this Chamber give me an argument for why grammar school parents should be balloted before the status of their school changes and parents of children at other schools should not? I am at a loss to find such an argument. Why should grammar school parents have a right that primary school parents, comprehensive school parents and special school parents do not have? Will anyone agree with the former and present me with a good argument for voting against the latter?