Academies Bill [HL]

My Lords, I shall speak briefly to Amendment 53, which is also part of this grouping. I agree with my noble friend that the proposal that he makes under Amendment 17 would be appropriate. Owing to the lateness of the hour, I shall keep to my own amendment, the purpose of which is essentially to give Parliament an ultimate level of accountability for what happens in the secondary and primary education system through the process of an annual report repeated every year about the progress of academies, their successes, their failures, their record and so forth. I shall say clearly, but briefly, why this matters so much. The present structure of accountability is by way of local authorities through to, eventually, their electorates. That system will be largely disappearing by the time that this Bill is passed, certainly for whatever group of schools that apply to be academies. The question then becomes, as my noble friend has said, whether there is any level of accountability, other than directly that of the Secretary of State to Parliament, more precisely related to academies themselves. It is of the greatest importance that we have a report to Parliament. There will of course be reports to Select Committees, but we all know that Select Committees—although we hope that this situation will be substantially reformed—do not get the public or media coverage that is given to Parliament itself. The idea of a report to Parliament in which all parliamentarians, Members of both Houses, can ask questions is of the first importance. I cannot emphasise enough the crucial nature of accountability in any major democratic reform of this kind. I will simply say that the purpose of Amendment 53 is to arrange for an annual report. That report would clearly be greatly strengthened by the belt-and-braces approach suggested by my noble friend, as we would then know whether academies maintained and ascribed to the agreements and arrangements that were made for them. Even so, the importance of a report to Parliament is central. We have reports to Parliament on a wide range of issues, so why not on a major part of the education of the people of this country?