Schools White Paper
Peter Dowd Excerpts(8 years, 8 months ago)
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Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)
Let me start by declaring an interest as a lifelong member of the National Union of Teachers and a former teacher and college principal—I am not sure whether or not it is a benefit in this debate to have led a high-performing educational institution. This has been an excellent debate, begun from the Back Benches by the Father of the House, my right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Sir Gerald Kaufman), who pointed out in a very able contribution that the Government are making a big mistake and asked them to think again.
My hon. Friends spelled out the need to think again. We heard contributions from my hon. Friends the Members for Coventry North West (Mr Robinson), for Brent Central (Dawn Butler), for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell), for Bradford West (Naz Shah), for Hyndburn (Graham Jones), for Norwich South (Clive Lewis), for Oldham West and Royton (Jim McMahon), for Chesterfield (Toby Perkins), for Burnley (Julie Cooper), for Salford and Eccles (Rebecca Long Bailey), for Ilford North (Wes Streeting) and for York Central (Rachael Maskell). We also heard extremely positive contributions from the hon. Members for Motherwell and Wishaw (Marion Fellows), for Southport (John Pugh), for Stroud (Neil Carmichael), for Gloucester (Richard Graham), for Solihull (Julian Knight) and for Portsmouth South (Mrs Drummond).
I would like to draw particular attention to the concerns expressed carefully, and quite properly, by Government Members. Concerns about removing choice and forcing academisation were expressed by the hon. Members for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton), for South Dorset (Richard Drax), for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) and for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge). The hon. Member for South Suffolk also expressed concern about the independence of small primary schools, as did the hon. Members for Newbury (Richard Benyon), for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh), for Telford (Lucy Allan) and for Solihull. The hon. Members for Winchester (Steve Brine), for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes) and for Fareham (Suella Fernandes) asked why, if something is broken in Hampshire, can the schools not stick with the local authority? I think that the Secretary of State indicated that there might be a concession to allow local authorities to form a multi-academy trust. If that is the case, it should be welcomed.
Nic Dakin
I am going to make some progress.
I thought that the hon. Member for Colchester (Will Quince) made a really excellent speech. He made it clear that there is no evidence that academies are always better and expressed the fear, which many of us genuinely feel, that this may prove to be an unnecessary shake-up. He was complimented on that argument by his colleague the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Huw Merriman).
The big question that everybody is asking is: why? Why force every school to become an academy? Why remove the historical partnership between local communities and their schools by saying that schools can no longer choose to remain in local authority families? Why remove the right of parents to be elected by their peers to serve on their child’s school’s governing body, as is clearly proposed in paragraph 3.3 of the White Paper? I listened very carefully, but no credible answer has yet come forth, and there has been no evidence to support the huge upheaval that this forced academisation represents.
It is not as though those working in education do not have challenges to focus their energies on, such as teacher shortages, inadequate school place planning, managing the chaos of initiatives on exams and assessment being imposed on schools, or managing the first real-terms cuts in schools funding since the mid-1990s, with the need to make around £7.5 billion of savings. With limited resources, one might think that a Conservative Government would focus their energies on these very real issues.
I think that the Bow Group put it well:
“The proposed changes to schools follow a worrying trend in recent years to further centralise decisions away from local communities, which have more nuanced understanding of the issues they face daily. This adds to an ongoing ideological drift between the Party and conservative values.”
The leaders of the four largest groups on the Local Government Association are right to point out that 82% of local authority schools are good or outstanding, adding that there
“is no clear evidence that academies perform better than council maintained schools.”
That echoes the conclusion that the cross-party Education Committee came to after its in-depth inquiry into the matter. The National Association of Head Teachers is right to warn that
“the proposals present a particularly high risk to the future viability and identity of small, rural schools, nurseries and special schools.”
The professional associations are right to point out in their joint letter that a
“forcible transfer of 17,000 schools to academy status... will be a huge distraction from schools’ core functions of teaching and learning… This is not what parents want from their schools, nor was this a proposal part of the manifesto that the current government put before the electorate.”
That is from the leaders of the Local Government Association’s leading groups. Evidence that they are right can be seen in the angry reaction of parents on Mumsnet to the suggestion that schools should be forced to become academies, whether or not that is needed or the school community and parents want it.
Her Majesty’s chief inspector has recently written to the Secretary of State to raise serious concerns about the performance of seven large multi-academy trusts:
“Given these worrying findings about the performance of disadvantaged pupils and the lack of leadership capacity and strategic oversight by trustees, salary levels for the chief executives of some of these MATs do not appear to be commensurate with the level of performance of their trusts or constituent academies. This poor use of public money is compounded by some trusts holding very large cash reserves that are not being spent on raising standards.”
It is no wonder 146,000 people have already signed a petition calling on the Government to stop going down this road.
“Schools Week” asked a pertinent question: what will forced academisation mean for pupils? It came up with a perceptive answer: “Almost nothing.” However, there will be an impact on children and parents. School leaders will have to put scarce energy and money into researching and managing academisation. An additional £1.3 billion will be spent on the process, which is money that could be directly spent on children in our schools. Time and money that should be spent tackling the real problems facing schools—managing cuts in funding, recruiting and maintaining the education workforce, and providing sufficient school places—will be spent on managing a process of structural change. However, it is worse than that. There is not the capacity in the system to support wholesale academisation. There are already insufficient potential sponsors to give schools that need or want to become academies a choice.
The regional schools directors charged with ensuring school improvement will be distracted from focusing on that as they marshal capacity for wholescale academisation —a capacity that might well include expanding already-failing academy chains, which was something the Secretary of State failed to rule out when pressed to do so by my right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms) in the Budget debate. We have a strategy that would deliver the ideological outcome of forced academisation but do nothing to improve outcomes for the UK’s children or UK plc.
I hope all right hon. and hon. Members who believe that such massive changes to our school system should go ahead only if the evidence is in place to support them will vote for the motion on the Order Paper if they are not convinced that the time, money and energy that will be spent on forced academisation will improve outcomes for children, families and communities.
Trade Union Bill
Peter Dowd Excerpts(9 years, 3 months ago)
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Ms Eagle
No.
As I was saying, that issue needs to be dealt with on a cross-party basis to change our political system fairly, and not just with the partisan interests of the Tory party in mind.
As the Regulatory Policy Committee has noted, these proposals for changes are rushed, and have had nowhere near the level of consultation that they deserve. The committee has described the impact assessment as “not fit for purpose”. There are serious questions about whether this Bill is compatible with the international legal obligations of the United Kingdom, as a member of the International Labour Organisation. The ILO has already criticised the UK on a number of occasions for its constraints on the right to strike, and the United Nations special rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association has called for more, not less, trade union freedom in Britain.
Ms Eagle
I am winding up now.
Given the serious questions about its effect on fundamental rights, the Bill may be open to legal challenge on a number of fronts, including its impact on the devolution settlements, because it covers areas such as health and education that are clearly devolved. The Welsh Government, who have a substantially better record of working constructively with trade unions than this Administration, have objected to the proposals in strong terms, and are considering whether a legislative consent motion might be appropriate.
The Bill is a divisive piece of legislation which undermines the basic protections that trade unions provide for people at work. This is a partisan attack to undermine those unions, and the Labour party, but it will have substantial implications for more than 6 million workers by undermining unions’ ability to stop harassment in the workplace and ensure that the basic health and safety of workers is maintained. The Government are pushing through an agenda of attacking civil society, intimidating charities, threatening basic civil liberties, and undermining access to justice. These draconian measures must be stopped, and I urge the House to deny the Bill a Second Reading.
Peter Dowd (Bootle) (Lab)
I declare an interest as a member of Unison. [Hon. Members: “Oh!”] Yes, and I am proud of it. As a former council leader, I know from experience that the role of trade unions has been nothing but positive and constructive, especially during this time of massive cuts in local government. The Government seem to have a morbid obsession with trade unions, a visceral hatred dressed up as a legislative virtue.
There is little, if any, evidence to back up the Government’s claim that trade unions are so disruptive that more legislation is needed, but it is the reserve clause—clause 13—that is particularly odd. It gives power to the Secretary of State or a Minister to determine whether a union rep, say in Carlisle, has had too much facility time off. Does the Secretary of State not have anything better to do than check what some union rep in Carlisle is doing? At a time when the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government is devolving power and responsibilities to the city regions, the Business Secretary and his Ministers are personally checking how much time a shop steward spends undertaking their union duties. This is how ridiculous it is. Can Members imagine the German, French, Spanish or Italian equivalent of the Secretary of State, sitting in Berlin for example, deciding whether a shop steward in Düsseldorf or Stuttgart has time off for union duties? That is how ridiculous it is. That is the comparison to be made. Why is the Secretary of State wasting his time on petty legislation and score-settling?
Alan Johnson
Perhaps my hon. Friend will reflect on this. I tabled a question for the Secretary of State for Health, asking if he could tell me how many child and adolescent mental health in-patient facilities had closed. He referred me to NHS England. He does not know that, but he will know every fine detail of facility time throughout the NHS.
Peter Dowd
That is how petty this is. Should the Secretary of State not be spending his time and taxpayers’ money dealing with issues such as productivity or investment in infrastructure?
I came down from my constituency today with three trade union representatives from the private sector who were on full facility time. That is the action of a sensible, reasonable and enlightened business, as opposed to the petty, anally retentive and obsessive Government, with a Secretary of State who has nothing better to do with his time.