Academies Bill [HL]

My Lords, we had a good debate in Committee on the importance of consultation, as a result of which we have thought again, and we will come to a group of amendments that deal with that issue. We have accepted that we need to make explicit on the face of the Bill the requirement that schools should consult. Although we recognise the important role that local authorities can play—as the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, knows—we are keen, so far as the consultation with local authorities is concerned, not to be prescriptive. On the second element of the first amendment, it is certainly the case that the school will have to agree its admissions policy with the Secretary of State, but that would be at the point of entering into the funding agreement, just as has always been the case with academies. As she knows, I share her concerns about creationism, but one of the core aims of the policy is precisely that the Secretary of State should not dictate to academies what they should teach. The whole direction of government policy is to interfere less and trust teachers and head teachers more. It is not easy and a lot of debates that we have had have been around the tension between trusting people and being worried about what happens if you trust people and things go wrong. I fully accept that if you trust people things do go wrong, but that is the direction that we want to try to go in. On the point that the noble Baroness made on employment, we want academies to have freedom around their employment terms and conditions. We do not want the Secretary of State to micromanage all that from Whitehall. As for faith schools, which we touched on briefly in earlier amendments, the Bill simply seeks to maintain the status quo. We are not seeking to make it easier for there to be an increase in faith schools or to change their character, but we believe that there should be the same chance to become an academy as any other maintained school. We do not think that any faith school seeking to convert should have to go through an additional application simply to stay as they are. We do not propose to prevent academies from seeking designation after conversion, providing that they meet the relevant tests, just as will be the case for maintained schools. However, any new faith academies, including the free schools, about which I know she has some concerns, will have to balance the needs of children, both with a faith and with none, and admit at least 50 per cent of their intake without reference to faith. I hope that that is of some comfort to the noble Baroness and that it responds to some of the points that she made. I also hope that she will feel able to withdraw her amendment.