Tenancies (Reform) Bill
Debate between Sarah Teather and Barry Gardiner(9 years, 12 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Sarah Teather
I agree with the hon. Gentleman. The good landlords are desperate to see the system improve, because they feel that the present situation is damaging their reputation. They do not want rogue landlords in the system; they want them to leave the playing field open to people who are decent and who uphold the law.
Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)
I, too, support the Bill. The hon. Lady will be aware that, since 2010, renting has become £1,020 a year more expensive, on average. It is now the most expensive form of tenure. In the name of fairness, should we not also be addressing that issue?
Sarah Teather
I am going to try to avoid getting into the wider issues today, partly because I am keen to ensure that we have consensus on the narrow points in my Bill. However, the hon. Gentleman has had this opportunity to make his point and it will appear in Hansard. Also, the Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol West (Stephen Williams) is in his place and he will have heard the hon. Gentleman’s point.
I shall be leaving Parliament at the next election, after 12 years as an MP in Brent, and I have put in for private Members’ Bill ballots many times over the years and not been successful. It is therefore a huge privilege for me to be selected so high in the ballot this time, particularly in my last few months in Parliament. I recognise that an awful lot of MPs wait for years for an opportunity like this as a Back Bencher, so when I found out that I had come up in the ballot, I was determined not to squander it by pursuing something very party political and divisive which had no chance of getting through. Instead, I wanted to use the opportunity to make a real difference to people’s lives by introducing a proposal for improvement that could command cross-party support and had a chance of becoming law.
Academies Bill [Lords]
Debate between Sarah Teather and Barry Gardiner(14 years, 4 months ago)
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Barry Gardiner
I am pleased to follow the courteous exchange between the hon. Member for South Swindon (Mr Buckland) and my hon. Friend the shadow Minister.
I have a fundamental philosophical problem with the amendment. Earlier, when giving advice to Members, Mr Chope, you pointed out that the amendment was about whether special schools should be included in the academies programme. I oppose this reform because, unlike the previous system, which tried to address disadvantage and underperformance by taking money from outside the system and ensuring that it was targeted at underperforming schools and children who were not doing so well, and putting innovation into the system to see if that would make improvements, the Bill looks to take money from within the system, mainly from children who are disadvantaged, and give it to children who are, on the whole, better advantaged.
The amendment relates to special schools, which are specifically for children with greater disadvantage, so it goes against the thrust of why Labour Members oppose the Bill as a whole. I believe that there is tension among Labour Members that needs to be resolved. That can be done in the way that my hon. Friend the shadow Minister outlined in relation to the arrangements between special schools and local authorities. It goes to the heart of funding and co-ordination.
I outlined in an earlier intervention the very detailed and complex mesh of arrangements that have pertained in my borough between mainstream schools—not special schools—that were part of the Building Schools for the Future programme, that were seeking, as part of that programme, to divide up, in a co-ordinated way between themselves, the different elements of special educational needs that needed to be addressed: autism at one school, learning difficulties at another, challenging behaviour at another. At the core of that was the amalgamation of Hay Lane and Grove Park schools, which were for children who simply could not be accommodated within the mainstream.
That is an incredibly complex set of arrangements between a number of schools, some of which might, under the provisions of this Bill, choose to become academies, and some of which, under the same provisions, would not be able to become academies because they are not, at present, outstanding schools. The local authority will be unable to co-ordinate the system as a special school goes off and becomes an academy, and the funding that is drawn off by the academies will reduce the capacity of the centre. I am reminded of the W. B. Yeats poem about the widening gyre—the centre will not be able to hold. We will lose the ability of central provision through the local authority to co-ordinate the needs of all children with special needs—those who need to be in mainstream schools and those who need to be in special schools. That is the fundamental problem. However, we should not look at our opposition to this clause about special educational needs in the same light as our opposition to the Bill as a whole because there is a fundamental philosophical difference between them.
The Minister of State, Department for Education (Sarah Teather)
It is a great pleasure to be taking part in the debate on this Bill from the Front Bench. As the hon. Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker) said, it is the first opportunity I have had to do so. I am grateful for his warm words at the outset. I recall the first Bill that I debated in opposition. I remember looking at the Minister struggling with her papers and thinking, my goodness, what an awful lot of things she needs to know. It does seem very different from this side of the Dispatch Box. The hon. Gentleman said that all parties in the House are united by a common desire to improve educational attainment. I welcome that. It is important to begin from that perspective and to recognise that our motives are common.
I listened carefully to what the hon. Gentleman said in his opening speech, which covered many different areas and was almost a re-run of some of the issues that were covered on Second Reading. My understanding of the nub of his argument is that his tabling of the amendment relates to his general objection to the Bill rather than a specific objection to special schools. However, I will try to deal with the points that he raised on special schools in a moment.
It is not clear to me why this policy is any different from that followed by the hon. Gentleman’s Government. If we believe it is a good thing to have freedom for schools, particularly for those that are struggling, it is not obvious to me why we would then deny those freedoms to other schools that are already doing well, particularly as the Secretary of State has made it clear that he expects outstanding schools that become academies to partner a weaker school and to share their expertise. That can offer an opportunity to provide the kind of partnership that I think the hon. Gentleman probably agrees with.
As the hon. Gentleman said, amendment 28 would prevent special schools from converting to academies. That was the previous Government’s policy. We think it right that special schools should have access to the same opportunities and freedoms that we are giving to mainstream schools. Indeed, many special schools want that freedom: more than 50 have registered an interest in becoming an academy. [Interruption.] The shadow Minister can find that detail on the Department’s website.
Barry Gardiner
Can the hon. Lady clarify that remark? She says that those schools have expressed an interest in becoming an academy. Is that strictly accurate, or have they rather expressed an interest in further information about the process of becoming an academy?
Sarah Teather
Okay, I agree—I accept the hon. Gentleman’s point. Indeed, they have expressed an interest in obtaining more information about becoming an academy.