I rise in support of new clauses 3 and 9, and to make a few remarks about amendment 11.
What bothers me about this legislation is the issue of consultation, which was alluded to by the hon. Member for Stroud (Neil Carmichael), and parental consultation in particular. That is a long-term anxiety for me, because I am aware of local schools in my constituency that have been subjected to horrific bullying by academy brokers to covert to academies, and I would not wish that replicated anywhere else.
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Despite having been a member of the coalition Government, I have general reservations about the Academies Act 2010, which I consider inferior to Mrs Thatcher’s legislation on grant-maintained schools. That gave parents a decisive vote on the destiny of the school. Members may recall that during the passage of the Academies Act, I divided the House, with the help of Mr Ed Balls, to try to get parents a better vote in the decisions on the structure, character and governance of the school. The answer of the House at the time was clearly no—parents were not to have such a voice—and this legislation would serve to further reduce the power of parents. Indeed, some of the witnesses who gave evidence in Committee stated explicitly that parents were not the best judges, or any kind of reasonable judge, of their children’s educational destiny.
In the Bill the powers of the local education authority, governors and diocesan authorities are reduced, as well as those of parents. Even interim executives are subject to constraints that they did not have before. Throughout, the common theme is that the powers of the Secretary of State increase, or those of the Secretary of State’s agents, the regional school commissioners, do, although those commissioners were something of an afterthought to the academies programme.
In the Bill rights of appeal are diminished, the duties of consultation are tokenistic and not spelled out, and timescales can be telescoped. We have to ask why the Secretary of State needs to accumulate any more power than they already have. It has been pointed out—including by the Secretary of State and in Committee—that the only real restraint left on the Secretary of State is the duty to act reasonably and the fact that they can be challenged under common law. If we ask why this is happening, the main reason is that we are all identifying poor and mediocre education which, it has been argued, requires immediate action. No day should be wasted as it is precious time that pupils will not get again. There is no dispute about that, but immediate remedial action is not the same as immediate academisation, and that is where the Government appear confused.
It is indisputable—I do not think anybody disagrees—that academisation is neither a necessary nor sufficient condition for progress, and as has been agreed across the House, some academy chains are not very good. Some schools get better and improve significantly through effective LEA or diocesan intervention, or some process other than academisation, and many examples were mentioned by those on the Opposition Front Benches.
The Government must be asked why they are such a one-club golfer. One plausible argument might be that despite there being other remedies, the academy route is simply the more probable, or probably effective, way of addressing coasting or failing schools. That is an arguable case if we are going to go by the evidence, but I see no evidence that the Government want to do that. The Prime Minister and the top of the Government give us targets and goals for turning ever more schools into academies, regardless of whether that is appropriate: it must happen.
Let us suppose that we are going to decide policy on the basis of evidence, and that ideology and prejudice will have no serious influence. Nobody—I am sure the Chair of the Education Committee will agree—would dispute that all educational research shows that the biggest factor that influences children’s outcomes and their overall educational destiny is the involvement, support and participation of their parents. If the level of consultation, communication and participation declines, it is not only regrettable but, as evidence shows, unproductive. The Government have a case to answer there.
I turn briefly to amendment 11, on grammar schools, tabled by the hon. Member for Altrincham and Sale West (Mr Brady). I went to three grammar schools, two of which were founded round about 1550, and for part of my education I went to the same grammar school as the Minister—Maidstone grammar school in Kent. He started his secondary education there; I finished mine. I have read that he applauds it for its rigor. I have to say it was not always rigorous when I was there. I was taught by a head of French who was going deaf, and bright boys in L stream, as it was called, were encouraged to give up science as quickly as possible in order to concentrate on arts subjects, if that was their bent, so there was evidence of occasional coasting there.
I will not dispute, however, that grammar schools have had an impact on social mobility among the pupils attending them, and I will not dispute that they perform well on all evidential bases. I have another experience, however, apart from the one I share with the Minister. I
started my teaching career in a secondary modern in Bootle which, one year after I started, merged with Bootle grammar school and became a comprehensive school. I taught mixed classes of ex-grammar school pupils and ex-secondary modern school pupils, and I honestly could not always tell the difference in terms of their ability and potential.
In the years before, however, pupils who went to the secondary modern, as opposed to the grammar school, had very different outcomes and saw themselves quite differently. When the comprehensive developed into a high school, it was not an immediate success, as much had been unpicked, and I learned that restructuring was not always wise—when something works in an educational environment, it is best to leave it in place. I am therefore actually pretty agnostic about structures, and I have extensive experience of almost every kind of structure, having also taught for a long period in an independent school. There is good and bad in all types of school. What is crucial in any type of school are leadership, morale and parental support.