Schools White Paper

Dawn Butler Excerpts

Wednesday 13th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[Dawn Butler (Brent Central) (Lab)]

I want to pick up on what the hon. Member for Telford (Lucy Allan) has said. All Members, from all parts of the House, strive to make sure that every school is a good school, and that children are taught by great teachers. Academisation of schools does not, in itself, achieve that. It is important that we make that clear and that we do not pretend otherwise.

I would like to send my condolences to the family of John Cope, a former regional secretary of the GMB, who passed away yesterday. John fought long and hard for teachers all across north London, fighting to ensure that all schools were good ones, and those schools always welcomed John to their school. This might be wide of the mark—I could be completely wrong—but as I read and tried to make sense of the White Paper, I thought that part of this policy might be about stopping trade unions supporting their members. Now, more than at any other time, the one thing that will keep people —whether they work as a teacher, a cleaner, a dinner lady or a teaching assistant—connected and united in an educational establishment is the trade union movement. Rest in peace, John. The fight continues.

In Brent Central, we have five academies. Of all our other schools, only one is rated inadequate. The schools that became academies under Labour were failing schools that became academies in order to turn themselves around, which has indeed worked. That was a process for schools, rather than something that was forced on them. That point will be made throughout this debate.

In 2015, a parent contacted me in complete distress, saying, “They are forcing us to turn into an academy.” She asked me to go to a meeting, and I said, “Yes, not a problem.” I was quite surprised at how distressed all the parents and teachers were at the meeting. I was careful to obtain all the facts before forming an opinion, because that is what we do. I was told that, despite the objections of the unions and the parents, no proper information had been given to them. The parents wanted to have a ballot—a secret one, even—and they were willing to pay for it, but the school would not allow that to happen. Strikes and marches by the parents followed, and the kids were distressed, because the school was forced to turn into an academy. I worry that that will follow when other schools are forced to turn into academies.

Councillor Melinda Tilley, the cabinet member for education on Oxfordshire County Council, said on BBC Radio 4’s “Today” programme last month:

“It means a lot of little primary schools will be forced to go into multi-academy trusts and I just feel it’s the wrong time, in the wrong place. I’m fed up with diktats from above saying you will do this and you won’t do that. This is not why I became a Conservative. It makes my blood boil. I’m put in a position where I can’t protect schools. One size does not fit all. I think they’ve gone bonkers.”

[Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making some very good points about small rural schools. I do not believe that the Secretary of State addressed those points when she was questioned by MPs from her own side of the House. I have schools in my constituency with as few as 13 pupils. What kind of academy trust will want to take on a school that small?

--- Later in debate ---

[Dawn Butler]

That is a good point, and my hon. Friend makes it very well. The chief executive of England’s largest multi-academy trust, AET, has admitted that there is less autonomy for schools in academy trusts than there is for schools that are maintained by local authorities. He has even said that schools will not be able to opt out if the ethos does not fit that of the school. That is a problem.

The Secretary of State talks about money going into schools. It is a fact that there has been a cut in the amount of money going into schools. Actually, with the loss of the contextual value added funding, many schools have lost up to £800 per pupil, and the pupil premium has done nothing to bring that money back into the school system. It is absolutely outrageous.

I have been trying to find out what the proposal is really about. It is certainly not about ensuring that all schools are good schools and that we have good education for kids in Brent. Local authorities will pick up the legal cost of doing this. I do not know what the cost will be, because we are apparently wrong. We had it as £1.3 billion, but the Secretary of State says something different. It would be nice to know definitively what the figure will be.

What I can say is that we will lose £260 million in London schools alone. My right hon. Friend the Member for Tooting (Sadiq Khan), who is the Labour candidate for London Mayor, has not only said that he will work

“with councils to challenge coasting or poor-performing schools”,

but that it is

“a scandal that more than 44,000 children in London are taught in classes of more than 30—with some taught in classes of more than 40.”

He says:

“I’ll play a city-wide strategic leadership role, seeking to make a big dent in the school places crisis.”

I urge the Government to stop and listen to the teachers who are staying in the profession, as well as to those who are leaving it, and just do a U-turn on this flawed White Paper.