Academies Bill [Lords]

Liz Kendall Excerpts

Monday 19th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Liz Kendall (Leicester West) (Lab)]

The Academies Bill raises many issues, but I want to focus my comments on three key questions: will the Bill help pupils and schools with the greatest needs, will it improve outcomes in education, and does it represent the best use of taxpayers’ money?

The Government say that their Bill is a continuation or fulfilment of the previous Government’s approach, but there is a fundamental and crucial difference that many hon. Members have cited. Labour’s academy policy gave extra help and support to struggling schools in deprived areas, and sought to break the link between social and economic disadvantage and low achievement and aspiration, which still damage the lives of too many children, including in my constituency. However, this Government are offering academy status to schools that are already rated outstanding.

The Centre for Economic Performance at the London School of Economics recently analysed the 1,560 schools that have expressed an interest in becoming academies. It found that those schools had very different characteristics from the 203 existing academies. Pupils in the schools that have expressed an interest in becoming academies are less likely to be eligible for free school meals, to have special educational needs, or to come from an ethnic minority, and are more likely to get five good GCSEs. For example, around 30% of pupils in academies are eligible for free school meals, compared with only 9% of pupils in schools that have expressed an interest in becoming an academy and are rated outstanding. Just under 28% of pupils in academies have special educational needs but do not have a statement, compared with around 14% of pupils in schools that have expressed an interest and are rated outstanding. That evidence led the Centre for Economic Performance to conclude that

“the new coalition government’s policy on Academy Schools is not, like the previous government’s policy, targeted on schools with more disadvantaged pupils. The serious worry that follows is that this will exacerbate already existing educational inequalities.”

On the radio this morning, the Secretary of State said that every new academy will help a school that is struggling, but the Government’s own impact assessment of the Bill estimates that only a third of new academies are likely to help weaker schools. It also estimates that the cost of providing help to a struggling school will be around £50,000 for each new academy. First, £50,000 is very little money to help a genuinely challenged school. Secondly, it is not clear whether the Government will provide that extra money to help struggling schools, or whether the new academies will have to find the money from their own budgets.

Many schools offer help and support to other schools in their area, but I question whether new academies will voluntarily give their own money to help a struggling school, especially when we are likely to face cuts of 10% to 20% in the education budget. I hope that the Minister of State, Department for Education, the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr Gibb), in his concluding comments, will say whether every new academy will be required to help a struggling school, as the Secretary of State implied. If so, will the Government provide the extra funding that the help will genuinely cost?

Government Members will, I am sure, argue that the pupil premium will play a key role in helping children in disadvantaged areas. I welcome the pupil premium, and I will support it—if it provides resources over and above the extra money that schools already get for deprivation under the existing funding formula, if it focuses on genuinely disadvantaged children, and, crucially, if it is funded without cutting help and support from other programmes that help vulnerable groups. But as yet we have no details about how the pupil premium will work—which pupils it will benefit, how much will be provided, or where the funds will come from.

The final point that I want to make about whether the Bill will support schools that need help most relates to those schools that are neither outstanding nor in special measures, but in the middle—a point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg). There are a substantial number of schools in that category, many of which still need to improve, but the Bill offers them nothing. Labour’s national challenge programme supports a range of schools and challenges them to improve or face intervention, including the possibility of being converted into an academy or a national challenge trust school.

A number of schools in my constituency became national challenge trust schools on 1 June this year, and as part of the process they were promised additional funding—for example to employ extra teachers to provide more one-to-one tuition, to support existing teachers in getting new skills, and to work with parents such as those with English as a second language. However, the schools in my constituency have still not received the money they were promised. As a result, at least one of the schools, Babington college, had to cancel its plans to appoint extra teachers in time for the new term in September. I ask the Minister: will national challenge trust schools such as Babington in my constituency get the extra resources that they have been promised, and if so, when?

Let me move on to the second, and arguably most important, issue that I want to address.

[Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)]

Does the hon. Lady think it is fair that in her constituency in Leicester, education is valued at £600 a year more per pupil than in my constituency, despite the fact that I have areas of severe deprivation in mine? Surely she will welcome the pupil premium, as it will rectify the problem.

[Liz Kendall]

I want all children to have the funding that is appropriate to their needs. In my constituency, we have very challenging areas, and we want and need support. I want it for the hon. Gentleman’s constituents, too.

On the radio this morning, the Secretary of State said that the Bill will

“transform the educational achievements of pupils in this country.”

However, the impact assessment states:

“While there will still be benefits to new academies…these benefits are likely to be much lower given that they”—

the new schools—

“will have less scope for improvement than existing Academies, and will receive less start-up funding.”

The Bill also removes the requirement for new academies to have a sponsor or a partner, which we know from the contributions of other Members has been a key factor in improving standards in existing academies and trust schools.

There are also very real concerns that the Bill could have a negative impact on educational outcomes for specific groups of children. My hon. Friend the Member for North West Durham (Pat Glass) highlighted concerns about children with special educational needs, and the Government’s equalities impact assessment sets out clear evidence that such children in existing academies are not improving as quickly as those in other schools and may end up doing worse in some situations.

There are also concerns that children with special educational needs in schools that do not become academies could be affected by the Bill. Like existing academies, new academies will receive all their per-pupil funding and their share of funding for local authority-provided services, such as SEN provision, and that could create a shortfall in funding for the remaining local authority-maintained schools, which are more likely to need special educational needs services. I very much welcome the Government’s review of special educational needs, but the Bill is likely to have been passed before the review has reported, so I ask the Minister to consider the legislation’s impact on other schools and groups of children.

I turn to the evidence on free schools, because some Members have said that the Bill paves the way for them. There has been a huge debate about what the evidence shows, particularly the evidence from Sweden, and the highly respected Institute of Education, which the Secretary of State cited in his speech, recently assessed the data from that country. It found that more free schools were established in urban, affluent and gentrified areas, that the biggest beneficiaries were children from already highly educated families, and that the impact on less well educated and migrant families was “close to zero”. Even where Swedish free schools appear to have had a moderately positive impact on the academic performance of better-off children at 15 to 16 years old, the IOE finds that those advantages do not persist by the time children take their high school exit tests aged 18 or 19. They are also no more likely to participate in higher education than those who are schooled in areas without free schools.

We need to consider all sorts of other issues, such as community cohesion, which my hon. Friend the Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) cited. That is a key issue in a constituency as diverse as mine, but I must move on to my third and final question, about whether the Bill represents the best use of taxpayers’ money.

The impact assessment states that the cost of implementation will be £462 million over four years, and the Government say that much of that money is not additional funding, because they will simply transfer to new academy schools the money that would have gone to local authorities. However, there will be additional start-up costs of £68 million as well as the money that new academies will spend if they support weaker schools.

I agree that we need to achieve the best value for taxpayers’ money. I therefore hope that the Minister will explain in his closing statement how spending additional money on schools that have more advantaged pupils and are already doing well, and on a policy that is of questionable benefit in terms of improving educational outcomes and could lead to worse outcomes for children with the greatest needs, provides value for taxpayers’ money.

I also ask why Liberal Democrat MPs support a Bill that experts predict will exacerbate inequalities, worsen local accountability and usher in a free market in education. Those Members are risking a great deal, on issues that I know they hold dear, for very little proof of what they will gain in return. For those reasons, I shall oppose the Bill.