Academies Bill [Lords]
Sammy Wilson Excerpts(14 years, 1 month ago)
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Dan Rogerson
The hon. Gentleman has made that point on a number of occasions—this afternoon and previously—but the fact remains that it is a question not just of whether we amend the Bill, but how we do so. That is what we are debating. When the Minister responds, he might say what the guidelines are for consultation on aspects of the Bill following debates in another place.
Amendment 8, which was moved by my hon. Friend the Member for Southport, is quite specific about one group of people who will be affected and who may take an interest.
Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)
I take the point that the hon. Gentleman and others have made on the importance of consulting parents, but surely the Bill already ensures that they will be consulted. Clause 5 is clear that people “must” be consulted. It is also clear that people refers to “such persons as” the governors “think appropriate”. Surely to goodness no one would suggest that parents do not fall under the phrase,
“persons as they think appropriate”.
Dan Rogerson
The hon. Gentleman made that point in an earlier debate on another group of amendments. He is absolutely right that the Bill, as amended—amendments that were pressed for by my noble Friends in another place—would highlight parents as an obvious, key group for consultation. The question asked in amendment 8 by my hon. Friend the Member for Southport is whether there should be a ballot.
Who should trigger such a ballot? There may be some sympathy for the proposal of the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion for a reversal ballot—she suggests that 10% of parents could trigger such a ballot, but my hon. Friend said that an approval ballot should be triggered by one governor. However, one would have thought that even if a governing body, who might have signed up to academy status after a discussion lasting for a considerable period, decides to go for academy status, people outside that group may want a ballot. There are therefore problems with his proposal.
Sammy Wilson
Whether the threshold of one governor or 10% of parents is used to trigger a ballot, does the hon. Gentleman see the danger of a type of guerrilla warfare against a school? Ten per cent. of parents or one governor are very low thresholds. They could keep the debate going on for ever, which only introduces uncertainty on the school’s status.
Dan Rogerson
As a seasoned political campaigner, the hon. Gentleman is well aware of the possibilities that are open to anyone at that point.
Andrew Percy
I suspect that the hon. Lady and I will have to agree to differ on this point, otherwise we will end up bouncing backwards and forwards. Head teachers, teachers, governors and those who have attended a governors’ training course are generally well aware of their responsibilities beyond the boundary fence of their school.
Sammy Wilson
Does the hon. Gentleman not agree that any school that wants a long-term future and wants to attract the necessary intake of pupils to maintain its position will have to take cognisance of what is going on in the community, because without community support it will not get a supply of pupils?
Andrew Percy
My hon. Friend makes that point better than I could. That is precisely why I am making the point today that governing bodies are not full of educational asset strippers. They consist of people who care deeply about their schools and communities and who will not change the governance arrangements of their school without proper consultation with parents, pupils and the wider community. We should pay respect to the people who serve as governors. They are dedicated individuals who understand their responsibilities full well, and they will not proceed without proper consultation.
Vernon Coaker
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right about that. Of course what Lord Hill said in another place was that if we were to consider the grammar schools that become academies, we might find that that area is significantly broader. What that “area” meant was very difficult to define.
My hon. Friend the Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman), the former Chair of the Select Committee, drew attention to the fact that the Government are not averse to ballots because they have introduced them for local planning decisions. Of course, the Minister will know, as we heard in the statement that took place before our discussions in Committee started today, the Government are introducing ballots for locally elected police commissioners. The principle of ballots, such as that proposed by the hon. Member for Southport (Dr Pugh), is something to which the Government are not opposed.
We think that we should lay out the details that are set out in amendment 78 rather simply leaving it to people to do what is appropriate. Parents should be consulted and, as many people have said, it is essential that the pupil voice should be heard. In answer to an earlier question from a Member on the Government Benches, of course that would be done in a way that is appropriate. The amendment refers to guidance that should be given to schools on how they should consult pupils.
What are the teachers and non-teaching staff going to come back to in September? The Minister needs to answer the question about what is happening with the TUPE negotiations about the transfer of teaching and non-teaching staff for those schools that want to become academies.
Sammy Wilson
The shadow Minister is making a point about the form of the consultation. In fact, if he examines the remarks he is making now he will see just how difficult it will be to be prescriptive about the form of consultation, even though that is what he seems to be seeking. One would consult pupils in a different way to teachers, and parents in a different way to teachers, too. It might not be possible to get them all under one roof. Is he seeking a prescriptive method of consultation or is the fact that the Bill makes it clear there should be consultation on a question mentioned in the Bill and that it must take place with the appropriate people not sufficient detail for him?
Vernon Coaker
I do not think that it is sufficient. The hon. Gentleman is right: of course one would consult teachers, non-teaching staff and pupils differently. That is why our amendment states:
“The Secretary of State shall issue guidance as to how”
that is done. Of course the consultation will be carried out in different ways, and that is why we have included the word “guidance”.
On the need for consultation with neighbouring schools, the Bill does not require good and outstanding schools that become academies to partner schools that are in difficulty or need support. I know that in the other place it was believed—many of my hon. Friends believe it too—that such a provision should be on the face of the Bill. Merely stating that they should engage in such consultation is not sufficient. Many of us have made the point time and again that the complete elimination of local authorities from this situation is not acceptable at all.
Let me talk about amendment 77. The Chair of the Select Committee, the hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr Stuart), was quoted by the hon. Member for Southport. If hon. Members think that I am making too much of the idea that a consultation should take place before, not after, the giving of an academy order, they should listen to what the Chair of the Select Committee said during one of the debates last week—it bears repeating. On the subject of consultations that took place after an academy order was made, and not before, he said:
“Those consulted in such circumstances would have good grounds for feeling that they were participating in a charade. I ask those on the Government Front Bench to consider that.”—[Official Report, 19 July 2010; Vol. 514, c. 49.]
In his reply, the Minister needs to explain why it is not a charade and why the Chair of the Select Committee is wrong or misguided in making that comment. Is he wrong? Has he got it wrong? Does he not understand the process? Of course he understands that the making of an academy order comes before an academy agreement is signed—everybody understands that, and we have all read the Bill. We are saying that the discussion of, and consultation on, an academy order—by the way, I can find no example of what an academy order would actually be—should take place before it is made and not afterwards. Perhaps the Minister—in answer to the Chair of the Select Committee, if not to me—can tell us what an academy order will contain. What will it look like? What will be in it? Will we have the opportunity for some sort of consultation on what an academy order should be?
Mr Gibb
The school can continue with an academy order made. That is the point. The academy order can be made in September, but the funding agreement might take several additional weeks afterwards—[Interruption.] No, the school will be open; children will be able to attend a school and an academy order will have been made.
Sammy Wilson
I thank the Minister for giving way and for his further clarification of the purpose and usefulness of consultation after the order has been made, but does he not accept that once an order has been made, many of those who might have had an interest in the consultation might well deem that there has been a done deal so that the consultation is meaningless? I say that despite the Minister’s assurances today, because the flag locally will be whether or not an order has been made to declare a school an academy.
Academies Bill [Lords]
Sammy Wilson Excerpts(14 years, 1 month ago)
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Vernon Coaker
In the spirit in which debate has been conducted in Committee today, I thank the hon. Gentleman for recognising that I was trying to be constructive in my response. He will have read the Bill and he will know that clause 5(1) does not specify who should be consulted by a school wishing to convert. It just says that it
“must consult such persons as they think appropriate.”
Similarly, clause 5(3) states:
“The consultation may take place before or after an Academy order, or an application for an Academy order”.
If the hon. Gentleman follows his point through to a logical conclusion, one might expect the Bill to list the parents, the local community and so on as parties which should be consulted and shown to be supportive of the academy bid, because that would strengthen the application and increase its potential for success. Similarly, one would have thought the Bill would require consultation to take place before the academy order was applied for. I agree that such consultation is necessary, and the hon. Gentleman’s point was not unimportant, but the Bill does not do what he would wish it to do.
Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)
Does the hon. Gentleman not accept that, first, the Bill requires that there must be consultation and, secondly, that that consultation must be with “appropriate” people, so it is inconceivable that some of the stakeholders he mentioned—local people and parents and the local community—would not be deemed to be appropriate? Indeed, “appropriate” people, which is a general term, might be a far better description than a specific one which might not cover one particular group.
Vernon Coaker
Unusually, I do not agree with the hon. Gentleman, because a much tighter form of words in the Bill would ensure that we deliver exactly what he proposes. I believe that the Bill is so drafted because the Government think that the opposition from local authorities and local groups that always emerges to school reorganisation could hold up the progress of the Bill and the attempt to fast-track some schools to academy status. The lawyers will have said, “Put in ‘they think appropriate’, because if you start listing people and groups such as parents and community organisations, you will open yourself up, when trying to convert, to the possibility of legal challenges from parents and organisations saying they were not consulted when they should have been.” To fast-track academies is a policy objective, and I think that Ministers, their officials and their lawyers will have said, “For goodness’ sake, don’t make a list, because it will be a hostage to fortune.” Furthermore, I cannot understand why clause 5(3) includes the phrase
“or after an Academy order”.
Vernon Coaker
I agree with my hon. Friend’s point about the need for parents to be consulted, which relates to what the hon. Member for Bradford East (Mr Ward) said about the phrase
“persons as they think appropriate”
not being sufficient. Instead, the Bill should list groups such as parents and the local authority. If the Government had done that, it would have strengthened the Bill and meant that many of the difficulties that some of us have with it would have been to some extent ameliorated.
Sammy Wilson
I have listened to the hon. Gentleman’s explanation of why he objects to the catch-all phrase “appropriate persons”, but is he really suggesting that if a school moved towards academy status, yet parents or another group of significant stakeholders had not been included in the consultation, which must take place according to the Bill, and people wished to challenge that decision in court, the court would say that the letter of the law had been applied, even though that group had been excluded from the consultation?
Education and Health
Sammy Wilson Excerpts(14 years, 2 months ago)
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Michael Gove
I am delighted that the right hon. Gentleman believes that the first responsibility of the Secretary of State for Education is producing mighty muffin recipes. I take a different view. I do not want to take anything away from the right hon. Member for Morley and Outwood’s achievements in the kitchen.
Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)
I support the outline that the right hon. Gentleman has given for freedoms for schools, but how will he ensure that there is not too great a burden on schools when he wants to find out how they spend their money, how they are governed, whether they have raised standards, how they select pupils and a whole list of other things? How will he ensure that that does not lead to a lot of interference by his Department requiring information from schools that seek freedom?
Michael Gove
I have a great deal of sympathy with the hon. Gentleman. I know, of course, that there is a separate Minister who is responsible for education in the Province that he so ably represents. Earlier in my speech, I mentioned briefly—and I am happy to expand on this in a private meeting—that we will reduce the bureaucratic burden on schools by asking Ofsted to focus on teaching, learning and three other areas. In many of the areas in which it currently acts as a bureaucratic, box-ticking, information-collecting body, the requirements on it will be scaled back.
Returning to the right hon. Member for Morley and Outwood, I do not want to take anything away from his achievements, because the most stinging criticisms of his record have not been made by me but have come from his own side. The shadow Foreign Secretary has complained again and again in the past few weeks that in the past few years Labour “lost focus on education”. He has also complained that Labour lost the mantle of reform and therefore forfeited its claims to be progressive. In the spirit of cross-party co-operation, I have to say that I agree with David. The Department did lose focus, reform did go backwards and progress did stall. The radical energy that infused the Labour Government’s programme in 2005, which was embodied in the White Paper of that year, was lost and in its place came the Brownite politics of dividing lines, partisan positioning and misplaced aggression. We are determined to put that to one side and push forward a programme of radical reform.
What do we want to do? Let me quote:
“We need to make it easier for every school to acquire the drive and essential freedoms of Academies, and we need to so in a practical way that allows their rapid development to be driven by parents and local communities, not just by the centre…We want every school to be able quickly and easily to become a self-governing independent…school”.
Who said that? [Interruption.] Not me, but as the former Minister for Schools, the hon. Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker) has just said—10 out of 10—it was the former right hon. Member for Sedgefield, who is sadly no longer in this place, Tony Blair. He said:
“In our schools…the system will finally be opened up to real parent power.”
He argued that all schools would be able to have academy-style freedoms and should be able to take on external partners. He said that no one should be able to veto parents from starting new schools, or veto new providers coming in, simply on the basis that there were local surplus places. He promised a relentless focus on failing schools and that Ofsted would continue to measure performance, albeit with a lighter touch. He said that schools should be accountable not to Government, but to parents, with the creativity and enterprise of teachers and school leaders set free. Those promises were made in 2005 but, sadly, they were never honoured, because of the opposition to the White Paper and the legislation that was led from the Back Benches by the right hon. Member for Morley and Outwood and his allies.
Presciently, the former Prime Minister anticipated the criticisms that he would face, and which were mounted by the right hon. Gentleman. He said:
“The reforms will naturally come under sustained attack…Parts of the left will say we are privatising public services and giving too much to the middle class.”
He added that
“both criticisms are wrong and simply a version of the old ‘levelling down’ mentality”
that kept Labour in opposition for so long. As long as the Labour party continues to stand in the way of reform, it will condemn itself to continued Opposition.
Labour Members have a choice: will they continue to be a party of no, of the status quo, of carping, nostalgic, backward-looking criticism, always resisting innovation in the name of vested interests instead of pressing for change in the interests of the poor? Or will they join us in a forging ahead, after five wasted years, with a resumption of radical reform? Will they join us in giving professionals more power, the poor more resources, and every child a better chance?
I commend this Gracious Speech to the House.