Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill

My Lords, it has been extremely helpful to hear what a Conservative Government would do with the academies should they be given the confidence of the electorate at some time in the future. But I turn to what the Government have done to them. It occurs to me that they have created a monster. It might be a benign monster in many ways, but it is a monster. They started with a few academies, which became tens of academies and then hundreds of academies. I absolutely agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Verma. It is clear that Part 3, Chapter 4 is designed to do something about the quandary in which the Government find themselves. You cannot run 400 schools from the department. It seems to us, as it does to the Official Opposition, that it has been very much an afterthought to put the academies into YPLA’s portfolio of responsibilities, and that it is not necessarily the best place for them. Many academies do a very good job for children, but that is hardly surprising, because most of them are shiny, wonderful and beautifully resourced new schools. They attract the best teachers and parents who take a lot of interest in their child’s education and who would choose to send their child to these schools. Those circumstances in any school would lead to considerable success. We congratulate the schools and the children on that success, but our vision is of an education system that is a service to the whole community—not only to the children who are at the school at the moment, and the parents of those children, but to the children who will come down the track seven years later when the present cohort of children has gone. We therefore see the local authority’s role as somewhat more important, as the democratically elected representative of the whole community. That is why our vision of the academy system is slightly different from that of the Official Opposition. We would like local authorities to be able to bring academies more closely into the local family of schools, with more co-operation between them. Although I am happy with the idea that the noble Baroness has just outlined in Amendment 169ZB—that there should be a review of academies legislation 12 months after the commencement of the Act—I would like that review to include the effects of an academy on other schools in the neighbourhood and to talk to local authorities about whether they wanted academies in the first place. As we all know, the only game in town these days if you want a new school is to have an academy, or you simply will not get the funding. As for our Amendments 165 and 167, the noble Baroness, Lady Verma, expressed concerns about the YPLA’s ability to control the funding of academies. This matter was discussed at length in the Public Bill Committee in the other place. The Minister, Jim Knight, stated: ""we have no intention of requiring the YPLA to enter into funding agreements with academies … Even if we did want funding agreements to be negotiated with the YPLA in the future, by law the contracting party would still be the Secretary of State. Therefore, the Secretary of State and the Department will take an active interest in any funding agreements for the setting up of academies"." "Take an active interest" is a very strange expression if you are contractually involved in an agreement. However, he continued: ""My understanding is that the only academy funding agreement that can be undertaken is the one between the Secretary of State and the academy sponsor. It is therefore not possible for the YPLA to enter into such an agreement".—[Official Report, Commons, Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill Committee, 19/3/09; col. 448.]" So the impression of the Minister in another place of what the Bill will allow the YPLA to do in relation to funding agreements is clear. However, the NUT, which has briefed us about these two amendments, has had its legal eagles look at the Bill. They feel that a coach and horses could be driven through Clause 75 on this matter and that an ambitious YPLA could enter into such an agreement under the Bill. All we are asking in Amendments 165 and 167 is for the Government to close that loophole and to make it absolutely clear that the Secretary of State has the contractual responsibility and that the YPLA cannot do it. These are technical amendments—they are not principled amendments, particularly—on a matter that needs to be put right. As to the amendments moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Verma, we feel that the arbitration referred to in Amendment 155B may be quite useful if there is a local disagreement on sixth-form provision. We feel that, if Amendment 162 were put in, there would be no need for the YPLA to have the responsibility, so we do not see the need for it. On Amendment 164, we believe that a right of appeal is reasonable, should the academies feel that the YPLA has made a decision that is unreasonable in the circumstances and we would support that. On Amendment 168, we agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Verma, that monitoring and assessment of school performance is Ofsted’s job and not that of the YPLA. The Minister has an amendment in this group, Amendment 169. We were pleased to see that and we welcome it. It relates to not including functions of making, confirming or improving subordinate legislation. We feel that these matters are so important in the picture of secondary legislation in this country at the moment that such things should certainly come back to Parliament; the YPLA should not be able to do them. I have already mentioned Amendment 169ZB regarding the annual review, in which we would want to include the effects on the wider school family, not just the academies, albeit that many of them do a very good job. A Liberal Democrat Government would not get rid of academies; I should like to make that clear—not that we are necessarily expecting it to happen. As I said, we have a public service here for the whole community and it is vital that the democratic representatives of that community should have an appropriate say in the range of schooling that is offered to children and that no children are disadvantaged by the presence in their midst of these schools, which are quasi-independent but funded by the state. Many of them are very good, although some of their selection processes have, shall we say, given rise to questions in the past.