My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendments 17, 21 and 26 to 29 in this group. Amendments 21 and 26 to 29 are identical, straightforward and, I believe, not in need of explanation because they are consequential on Amendment 17. Clause 7(2) inserts a new subsection in the 2010 Act which states that:
“The Secretary of State must make an Academy order”.
The amendments seek to reinstate Section 4(1) in the 2010 Act which states that:
“The Secretary of State may make an Academy order”,
for a school that is “eligible for intervention”. These amendments address various parts of the Bill where reference is made to the “must convert” duty. They are the removal of the duty to consult in Clause 8, the “Duty to facilitate conversion” in Clause 10, the:
“Power to give directions to do with conversion”,
in Clause 11 and the:
“Power to revoke Academy orders”,
in Clause 12.
The point about these amendments is that, rather than there being a presumption that the solution for one school is a solution for all schools, they propose that each school should be considered on its merits. Ministers say that they want to help all schools improve. If they are sincere in that aim, we believe that options other than forced academy status should be available to the Secretary of State.
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Schools which receive an Ofsted judgment of inadequate may require changes to their governance arrangements. The new clause proposed in Amendment 17 addresses the weaknesses in the Bill by removing the dangerous assumption that a single form of governance is suitable for such schools. It requires a local discussion about what is best for such a school and the area that it serves. The concept of forced academisation where a school is found to be inadequate must rate as one of the most clearly ideological uses of the law to control schools that we have seen for quite some time in this country.
Not content with the existing Academies Act 2010, which gives the Secretary of State the power to issue an academy order to a school rated inadequate by Ofsted, the Secretary of State clearly, and almost bizarrely, does not seem to trust herself or her successors because she wants to ensure that she does not waver an inch by instructing herself—surely a unique concept—to do so automatically. No ifs, no buts, no consideration of alternatives and no consultation with parents, governors or local authorities. The Secretary of State will always have her way because nothing else is permissible, should this measure be enacted.
For the Secretary of State to say that she is effectively beyond fallible—that she cannot be wrong, ever—is tawdry. It is a misanthropic attitude and a very strange one for a Government to adopt and promote. It is not as though the one-size-fits-all approach is effective. In fact, the Government’s failure on school improvement was unveiled last month, when new figures showed that there are thousands more children in inadequate academies than in local authority schools. I mentioned
that at Second Reading and again last week in Committee. I will not repeat the figures, but they are certainly not explained by what we have heard from both Ministers today: that they are really a reflection of schools having transferred from the maintained sector and not yet having got up to the level that they are expected or hoped to reach. That does not go far enough.
The most recent Ofsted figures reveal that there are 17,000 more children in inadequate academies and free schools, and these figures were released just weeks after the Prime Minister unequivocally stated that his ambition was for “every school an academy”. The Secretary of State has said that academies are a better kind of school than those maintained by local authorities. I am not sure what she meant by that, and it would be helpful if either of the Ministers could clarify that today. However, there is not much objectivity in evidence in that statement. Indeed, most people looking at this Bill would say that there is not much objectivity to be found in many places within its clauses.
The Government are in danger of taking standards backwards, focusing obsessively on school structures at the expense of what matters most in our classrooms, which of course is the quality of the teaching. We believe that there should be a relentless focus on standards in all schools, and nothing is more fundamental to raising standards and improving social mobility than having excellent teachers in our schools. Yet, while the Government continue to be fixated on whether or not a school is an academy, they downplay the serious challenges facing our education system, such as the chronic shortage of teachers up and down the country.
As we have said on many occasions, Labour is not opposed to schools becoming academies. In particular circumstances with appropriate sponsors, the academy model works and often works well, but it does not always work and other models have proved more effective in some cases. In Committee in another place, some of the alternative approaches to school improvement were discussed. The Catholic Education Service provided two particularly telling examples which I believe bear repetition. The first was in a primary school when the diocese came forward with an alternative to academisation involving the appointment of an executive head teacher, who implemented a school improvement plan. With support from staff and parents, the school’s Ofsted assessment rose from grade 4 to grade 2 within a year, and that school continues to improve.
Partnership is another means of bringing about school improvement. Again, an example was given in another place of a school which was inspected by Ofsted in 2012. It was given grade 4 for attainment, teaching and leadership, and grade 3 for behaviour and safety. Overall, it got grade 4 and was thus in special measures. The diocese then brokered a support programme, led by the head teacher of another school, and the expertise of a number of local schools were used to improve the failing school. After just 13 months it was reinspected under Section 5 and was graded 2 in all areas. That was a clear example of a federation of schools working successfully, rather than automatic academisation.
Yet both those examples would become illegal if this authoritarian legislation becomes law. I ask whichever Minister is answering on this group how they can justify
such a draconian measure, as I regard it, which ties the Secretary of State’s hands so that she has absolutely no flexibility on how schools with an inadequate Ofsted judgment are treated. Why limit the options? Surely only closed minds follow that path. It is fairly clear that the Secretary of State holds an ideological position which states that private sponsors are always better than public bodies and, in particular, better than any local authorities, regardless of the party in control. It seems that even a Tory-controlled council cannot be trusted with education by this Government. Labour takes the view that decisions on schools should be taken according to the circumstances of each case, based on the evidence, and that the Secretary of State should not be making that decision herself or have someone do so in her name.
That is why we have submitted Amendment 17, which would introduce a concept that appears to be anathema to the Minister: consultation. The Minister shares the Secretary of State’s view that there is no point in asking people what they think because they might not give the answer that he wants to hear. Worse, they may delay the change to academy status through exercising their democratic rights. That is certainly not a reason for denying people the right to have their say, so this amendment sets out a number of steps, including a role for the unelected and publicly unaccountable regional schools commissioners.
At this stage, I would like to address some remarks to the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland of Houndwood, a man who I have respected for many years and who has a formidable reputation both within Scotland and furth of Scotland. However, I have to disagree with him for mentioning in his earlier remarks his disdain for what I think he characterised as the shibboleths of democratic deficit and human rights. I hope that I do not misquote him. I fear that I am about to disappoint him in this regard because I shall refer on more than one occasion to these important matters today and, indeed, at other stages of the Bill, because I believe that they lie at the heart of the Bill. The noble Lord mentioned a well-known international financial consultancy and said that he would prefer that it was given a role. That is not what I am referring to. To me, the issues of transparency and consultation are key because there is very little of the former and absolutely none of the latter, and that is indefensible.