Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill

When we debated the issue in Committee, I tabled an amendment to enable a different organisation to be established to run the academies. The question is whether the academies should be run from within the Department or whether they should be overseen by a stand-alone non-departmental public body. There are arguments on both sides. We are considering them, and the hon. Gentleman will be the first to know what we decide. In another place, Lady Morgan said:"““we cannot accept a situation where academy sixth forms are funded automatically””." She went on to say:"““However, academies often are the best providers. Those academies have nothing to fear. Local authorities cannot and will not just ignore that. If local authorities acted unreasonably in their commissioning role—refusing to fund high-quality provision may well count as unreasonable—they could face judicial review””.—[Official Report, House of Lords, 2 November 2009; Vol. 714, c. 58.]" Administration by judicial review is the not the way to proceed. The very real concerns expressed by Dr. Moynihan, which are shared by the rest of the academies movement, have not been properly addressed by Ministers. Indeed, none of the changes made in the other place that we are debating today have expressed those concerns in any substantive way. That is why we tabled an amendment to Lords amendment 124 which would insert a requirement that a majority of ordinary members of the YPLA must be currently serving principals of an academy, thus ensuring that the YPLA will take into account the needs of academies and will have an understanding of the approach that makes the movement so successful. The minority members will be able to deal with the other duties and responsibilities of the YPLA—