Academies Bill [HL]

Baroness Williams of Crosby Excerpts

Monday 7th June 2010 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Crosby]

My Lords, I add to the welcome given by many noble Lords to the noble Lord, Lord Hill, as he takes over his challenging position. I wish him well in his dedication to trying to get the best education system that we can. It is appropriate to begin my short speech by referring to the Prime Minister’s speech earlier today, which set out in dire terms the economic situation that we face. It is important in this debate—and in all debates that we will have on public services—to reflect on the effect of those dire circumstances on public services. When I speak today about the Academies Bill, I will very much bear in mind, as I hope all noble Lords will, the effects that we are likely to see, not this year when we are still living in what one might call the aftermath of the election honeymoon, but in the coming years, of the severe cuts in public services on education, health and other services. We bear those in mind when we talk about the best way to handle education.

I should add that in my view, as a member of the coalition, we all accept compromise here. However, because we accept compromise and because we are trying to bring together the best heritage of both parties, it is all the more important that Parliament in no way abdicates its role of scrutinising, examining and, wherever possible, improving legislation. In some ways, at the beginning of a very new kind of government, we need that role from the House of Lords and the other place more than ever before, and I shall address my remarks on the Academies Bill bearing that very much in mind.

Perhaps I may roll back for a minute and talk briefly about what I think were the real achievements of the Labour Government. Particularly in the early years of new Labour, they included, among other things, the excellent training of teachers, and not least of head teachers, so that they would fulfil their leadership role. They also included the creation of hundreds of teaching assistant posts. In the rather more academic discussion that we are having, we should not forget that teaching assistants have probably done more for deprived children—children who are deprived not only because of the poverty of their background but also because of their emotional and other needs—than for any other group in the community.

Quite often, we speak about attainment in education as though education is unrelated to things such as housing, health or the opportunity to move out of one’s immediate circle. These things have a great deal to do with educational poverty and they are one reason why, when we finish talking about how wonderful academies and other school systems are, we should never forget that, even today, the social background of a child is still the single most significant factor in whether he or she achieves the outcomes that we all want to see. That is hard to understand because it means that we cannot look only at education. However, it is very important to say it because it is what the whole challenge is really about.

I believe that in the second part of its time in office, Labour made the great mistake of pursuing attempts to control to an extent that could not be justified. Here, I declare an interest as the chairman of the judges of the Teaching Awards, which provide awards for the most outstanding teachers in the country, whether they are in state schools, faith schools or, indeed, independent schools. They have taught me a great deal about the challenges of teaching. In that second period, new Labour made the great mistake of accepting not so much local authority control—the Bill talks a great deal about that—but far too much central government control. That was where the control over teaching really came from, and the regime of testing, examination and endless monitoring made it very difficult for creative teachers to be creative. I welcome what has been done in this Bill to strip away that bureaucratic control over teachers and to recognise the importance of their contribution. I also welcome in the Bill what I consider to be the very important recognition of the leadership provided by head teachers.

Having said that, I turn to a number of troubling questions that arise from the Bill. In many ways the Bill is very loosely drafted, perhaps because some of the details have not yet been fully worked out. Some of the questions that I wish to ask have already been asked by other noble Lords but I want to emphasise them yet again.

The first question, which although not necessarily the most significant is very important, arises, as the noble Lord, Lord Low, pointed out, from Clause 1, where there are direct references to academic agreements and also to a new child on the block known as “academic arrangements”. I am troubled by what those are. They appear to make very few demands of an academy. They are expressed in subsection (6) but very broadly. So far as I know, they do not include requirements about admissions or about provision for educationally troubled or challenged children; nor, so far as I know, do they include many of the requirements that are implicit in academic agreements, yet Clause 1 refers to both almost as though they were the same thing. They clearly are not. Therefore, my first question to the Minister is: what is an academic arrangement? What forms of accountability are there? How far can we be sure that the admissions and other codes are implicit in academic arrangements, and how is the academy concerned to be accountable for the money provided to it by the Secretary of State?

There is also a second question, which has been raised by a number of noble Lords. What now constitutes accountability? Governors of academies are appointed usually by the proprietor of the academy or will be in the future, but it is not at all clear where the governors will be drawn from and what contribution they can necessarily make to the running of the academy. They may be outstanding, but not all have been outstanding successes and there may be a weakness at the level of the governing body. How does the Secretary of State see the accountability of academies that are governed by an arrangement, as distinct from an agreement, and how will he deal with the problems that therefore arise?

The third question was raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Massey of Darwen, and others, including my noble friend Lady Garden of Frognal. What happens to schools that are not academies, which are not accepted as academies or do not apply, and which at the other end will benefit to some extent from pupil premium? I deeply believe in the pupil premium; it is one of the best ideas that Liberal Democrats came up with. In the present straitened financial circumstances it is not clear how they will be financed. The danger is if they are financed by running down existing programmes, such as ESN, monitoring and one-to-one programmes rather than adding to them. Related to that is the serious issue of exactly what incentives will be provided to maintain schools that will continue to be the largest section of our educational system for quite a long time.

The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Lincoln, in an excellent speech, referred to the original motivation behind academies, a motivation which, among others, motivated the noble Lord, Lord Adonis. It was that academies should provide an alternative route for children in the most deprived communities or in the most challenged personal situations. The decision by the Secretary of State indicating that he will accept academies if they are from outstanding schools leaves the huge question that the right reverend Prelate asked. What then will happen to the least advantaged children who do not get a pupil premium as they are above the pupil premium level and will no longer be likely to see academies in the more impoverished and desperate parts of our community?

I have two final questions. The first was raised forcefully by my noble friend Lady Garden, who talked about the almost total absence of any degree of parental involvement in future academies, let alone the possible free schools where we could have a great deal or very little. It will not do to write parents out of the system. They are as crucial as schools in raising children with a capacity to learn, to love knowledge and to be good citizens. They are at least as important as schools. The big division that is emerging from this Bill between the role of parents and the role of teachers and governors shows that we are looking at a very troublesome issue.

Last of all, I say simply that we should approve and be pleased by the extent to which the Bill will raise the pressures on teachers and, in particular, the endless flow of directives, requirements and orders, which was the serious downside of new Labour’s achievement in education. It is not surprising that we have seen a slow decline in the past couple of years in comparative tables with other countries, to which the noble Lord, Lord Low, referred because we have probably reached the end of what one might describe as the bureaucratic model. The new model must be democratic, not just managerial. We have a strong obligation in this House to ensure that as we pass the Bill through its essential and important processes, that democratic, responsive and accountable element is very clearly seen to be there.

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[Lord Hill of Oareford]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, for her kind words. I am grateful also for the kind words that have been said by many noble Lords in welcoming me, even by some who know me—which makes it even more remarkable that they paid me such tributes.

It has been an excellent debate. I am beginning to learn about the very important job that this House does in improving legislation and holding the Government to account. I said last week that I would try to listen and learn, and I have listened and already learnt an awful lot this afternoon. It really is a great privilege to be able to listen to so many forceful speeches from such distinguished educationalists—and, as the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, said, four former Secretaries of State. That makes it quite a daunting occasion for me. One problem that I am discovering in this House is that the contributions are so powerful that I find myself nearly agreeing with all of them, even with that of the noble Baroness, Lady Morris of Yardley, at one point, when she made her powerful and impassioned speech.

I shall do my best to respond to the main themes raised today. However, as I am new to this, I hope that noble Lords will bear with me a little. I may not be able to answer the many hundreds of points that have been raised and the questions that I have been asked. A lot of them will be taken forward in Committee but, before then, I shall write to noble Lords and respond to as many of the points that have been raised as I possibly can.

I start by paying tribute to so many in this House who have done so much to support academies and who are so knowledgeable about them. I refer in particular to the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Peckham, whom it is extremely nice for me to see after a very long gap and who spoke inspirationally about the Harris academies and what they have achieved. Many thousands of children have reason to be grateful to him, as I certainly am. I am also very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Baker, for the work that he has done on university technical colleges, a subject that he has raised repeatedly in my short time in the House and assiduously outside this House. I look forward to discussing it with him further and reading the book that he gave me—and I do not know whether I have to declare it as an interest, but it was a very cheap book—about the importance of brain and hand working together. I am very attracted by the work that his trust and Edge have done and extremely interested in seeing whether we can do more to help with taking forward this idea of technical academies, which I know has been welcomed by many noble Lords.

With few exceptions, there seemed to be broad support for the idea of more academies, and I was grateful for that. However, there are clearly a number of practical concerns on all sides of the House, which require further clarification. Obviously I shall work as hard as I can to provide that clarification in the days and weeks ahead.

What is also clear from this debate is that we all start, on all sides of the House, with the highest ambitions for our young people and the highest expectations for school standards. It is also apparent that there is great respect on all sides of the House for the teaching profession and the superb work that teachers, head teachers, governors and others do every day to give children the best possible education. It is my belief that the respect that we feel for teachers can be better reflected in our education system and that professionals should be trusted with the decisions that they are best placed to make as leaders and staff at our schools. We are keen that they should be enabled to do so without constant intervention from government. That is what this Bill seeks to achieve; it says to schools, “Here is a mechanism for school improvement that you can adopt if it best meets the needs of your school and, more crucially, your pupils”. That in part is my answer to one main thrust of the extremely powerful speech made by the noble Baroness, Lady Morris of Yardley. She asked what evidence there was that academies were better and whether this was worth the effort.

We talked earlier about some of the statistics that we believe support the case on this side, but I recognise that education is about a lot more than statistics. Many head teachers of academies argue persuasively that academy freedoms have helped them and have helped them improve standards. The fact that more than 1,100 schools have already expressed an interest tells us something about the relationship that they feel they have with their local authority and how they think academy freedoms may help them to do a better job. That is the point that the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland made, and I agree with him on that.



I shall take some of the main themes raised this afternoon and try to respond in broad terms. The one that struck me most was special educational needs. The noble Lords, Lord Low and Lord Turnbull, the noble Baronesses, Lady Massey and Lady Garden, and most recently the noble Lord, Lord Rix, spoke extremely forcefully and persuasively about that. I recognise totally that we will need to provide more reassurance to those noble Lords and others in the organisations for which they speak. However—this picks up on the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Royall—academy funding agreements will require academies to have regard to the SEN code of practice in the same way as maintained schools. Local authorities will retain responsibility for pupil SEN assessments, statementing, funding of statemented pupils, ensuring that arrangements are in place for statemented pupils, and the monitoring of statemented pupils. Academies will have to ensure fair access and deliver provision. This is such an important area—I want to get it right—that I am keen to organise a special briefing on the subject before Committee for Peers who are interested. I think that my office has been in touch with the noble Lord, Lord Low, about that, and we are working on a date. I hope that as many Peers as are interested will be able to come along, and we will do our best to respond to some of their points.

Admissions was another broad area raised by the noble Baronesses, Lady Massey and Lady Garden, the noble Lord, Lord Low, the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Lincoln. The academy funding agreements will require academies to comply with the school admissions code and law, as with all maintained schools. The code and related legislation outlaw additional selection and require the highest priority to be given to looked-after children.

Points were raised about governance and parental representation by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Lincoln, the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Williams of Crosby and Lady Garden. As has been pointed out, the governance arrangements are not in the Bill, and they need not be. Governance structures are set out in an academy’s articles of association. We expect that an existing foundation or trust will continue to appoint the majority of governors. We do not anticipate that the existing trustees would consent to the conversion unless they were satisfied with the proposed governance arrangements. Academies are required to have at least one parent-representative on the governing body, and of course many choose to have more.

The noble Lord, Lord Phillips of Sudbury, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Garden and Lady Massey, raised points about charities and charitable status. The thinking behind the provisions on charities is that deeming academies to have automatic charitable status should make the process of establishing an academy easier by removing the need for each one to apply for charitable status individually. Given the number of potential academies, we think that will reduce a burden on those schools. It will make academies consistent with voluntary and foundation schools, which are already deemed charities in law and will shortly be exempt charities. It will be important for academies’ compliance with charity law to continue to be regulated and, in response to questions raised about that, I will discuss further with the Minister for the Cabinet Office who would take on the role of principal regulator for academies. I will report back to the House as soon as I am able to inform it of those discussions.

[Baroness Williams of Crosby]

Before the Minister leaves that area, can he say whether the so-called academy arrangements are required to meet the same requirements on admissions and other issues that he referred to in the case of funding agreements?

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

I fear that, if I may, I will need to write in more detail to the noble Baroness. I understand her point, but I do not want to get myself into deep water. I will follow this up with her specifically.