Academies Bill [Lords]

Damian Collins Excerpts

Thursday 22nd July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Pat Glass]

No doubt there are variations in the quality of service across the country. However, in my experience, the low incidence, high-need, high-cost services across the country are usually very good and valued by schools. The difficulty is that, at the moment, there is not a market place for it, so if we lose these services and a school finds that it needs them—for instance, if a blind child comes to the school—but has no idea about Brailling, specialist services, disability or any of these things, it will not be able to buy them from a market outside.

[Damian Collins (Folkestone and Hythe) (Con)]

In incidents such as the one she describes concerning valued services, might not an academy school look to buy those services off the local provider for the benefit of their own pupils?

[Pat Glass]

Yes, it could, and yes, it should. However, as the hon. Member for Bradford East (Mr Ward) said yesterday, sometimes good people do bad things, and head teachers are not always as forward thinking as we would like them to be. Obviously, the best ones are, but if a school does not have any blind children, why would it buy in to a sensory service? It could also argue that, if a child wishes to attend that school, it cannot meet their needs.