Education and Adoption Bill (Eighth sitting)

Suella Braverman Excerpts

Thursday 9th July 2015 Public Bill Committees

[Kevin Brennan]

My hon. Friend, once again, is right. We have to wonder what the Secretary of State’s problem is. Does she not trust herself to make the right decision? Why does she have to legislate to ensure she makes the right decision? It is a highly unusual clause, and I am racking my brains to think of something similar to it. I am sure that some constitutional experts, many of whom will be following our proceedings, will dig some up. I hope that this peculiar clause will be removed from the Bill, if not now then at a later stage, not because it is not vitally important that we do everything we can as quickly as possible to improve our schools, because it is, but simply because it is extremely foolish for Ministers to tie their hands and prevent themselves from carrying out other forms of intervention that might be the right pathway for improving schools in the long term.

The Government do not say enough about pupils who are languishing in failing academies—25% of failing schools are academies. From listening to Ministers’ wonderful anecdotes about academies that are thankfully successful, it would be easy to think that failing academies do not exist. We believe that a judgment about the future of a school should be based on evidence and on the particular circumstances of the school and the community. There should be a proper, open debate about that. There should be no stitching up of things behind closed doors.

[Suella Fernandes (Fareham) (Con)]

Is it not clear from the evidence we have heard that some academy chains perform excellently and some do not, and some maintained schools perform very well and many do not? It is a mixed picture, but it is clear that the academisation programme over the past decade has produced success. The academisation of a school in my constituency has taken it from below average to “good”, and it is on track to “outstanding”. That must surely be progress. Anything that empowers that process and takes it a step forward must be supported.

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Amendment 60 would require the Secretary of State to compensate a local authority for any additional costs or loss of capital assets when directed to take specified steps to facilitate conversion. Such a direction may include requiring the governing body or local authority to prepare a draft of a scheme under section 8 or paragraph 1 of schedule 1 to the Academies Act 2010 relating to the transfer of property.

[Suella Fernandes]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the clause allows governing bodies and local authorities to be involved in the conversion process, which is key to the local connection and will only bolster the leadership and transformation to academy status?

[Mr Gibb]

My hon. Friend raises an important point. This is about requiring involvement where it seems to be being resisted. She is right to make that point.

It would be wrong to introduce a new requirement for the Secretary of State to compensate local authorities in these circumstances. The clauses do not require the local authority or school governing body to do anything more than would be required for an academy conversion. As a school converts to an academy, it will be granted a 125-year peppercorn lease to operate on its land. The land continues to be used for educational purposes, and the local authority retains the freehold. In view of that, I hope that the hon. Member for Cardiff West will feel reassured enough to withdraw his amendments.

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By giving the Secretary of State powers to require governors to take specified actions, the clause removes the freedoms of school governors to make decisions that are, as the Secretary of State said, “right for their pupils”.

[Suella Fernandes]

Does the hon. Gentleman not consider that if a school has reached such a condition that an academy order is being taken forward, governance will have been one of the elements that was failing or required intervention, so it would not be responsible to allow governors a free rein, and this includes them in the participation.