Schools White Paper

Will Quince Excerpts

Wednesday 13th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[Will Quince (Colchester) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Brent Central (Dawn Butler). I declare any necessary interests as my wife is a primary school teacher.

I want to raise my concerns and those of my constituents about the proposal to require every school to become an academy by 2020. Let me be clear: I believe that there is a place for academies in our education system. They have played a part in helping to turn around schools and improve educational attainment for children throughout the country, although I do not believe that that improvement can be attributed solely to their being academies. I am not convinced that academies are the only direction for our education system or that they will somehow deliver the next great leap in academic results. First and foremost, there is no evidence that academies are automatically better than state-maintained schools. Indeed, there are plenty of good and outstanding schools throughout the country, including in my constituency, which are maintained by the local authority.

Furthermore, I fear that forcing schools to become academies, especially when they do not want to, will be an unnecessary shake-up for the school and the local council.

[Bob Stewart]

Academies can be really good—for example, the Harris academy in Beckenham, which has improved greatly. However, we are considering a White Paper—an evolving document for discussion—not a directive, and I disagree with the idea if parents and governors do not want it to happen.

[Will Quince]

Call me old-fashioned, but I hold the view that if a school is well governed, well run and performing well, it should be left alone and allowed to do its job.

No one quite knows what the outcome of the proposal will be, especially given that there seems to be a rather disjointed approach to the role of local authorities. We are telling local authorities that they are no longer responsible for schools, but still responsible for home-to-school transport and admissions. They are expected to be champions for parents when they are still responsible for the two most contentious matters when it comes to schools.

I do not believe that moving the control of schools from local authorities, which are run by elected representatives, to unelected regional schools commissioners makes schools more accountable to parents. We need decentralisation of education, which gives more control to teachers and parents. The proposal risks centralising power in Whitehall and giving power to unelected bureaucrats.

As my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) pointed out, we are considering a White Paper, and there is therefore time to put the proposals on hold and have a rethink. The White Paper is unquestionably generating a lot of uncertainty in our schools, and we should be in no doubt that the public have concerns.

[Michael Tomlinson (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that there is no doubt and there should be no concern about the role of parents as governors? I declare an interest as a parent and a parent governor. It is clear from the White Paper that parents will be encouraged to continue to serve on governing boards.

[Will Quince]

On that one point I am very disappointed by the Opposition’s motion. I largely agree with their points, and, given that we are talking about a White Paper, I could even have supported the motion, had it not been factually incorrect. [Interruption.] There is no question but that it is factually incorrect. It has a word missing. We do not mark exam papers on the basis of, “It was what they meant to say, so we’ll give them an A.”

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I am sorry—the hon. Gentleman is a most courteous individual, but we must now move on. There are 21 remaining colleagues who wish to speak and probably fewer than 50 minutes. There will now be a three-minute time limit in a bid to ensure that we maximise the input.