Academies Bill [Lords]

Steve Baker Excerpts

Monday 19th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Dr Pugh]

To a certain extent, it seems to be a case of “to those that have, shall be given”. It is also highly unlikely that parents in the most deprived areas, where attainment is low, will have the skills, the capacity or the conviction to set up their own schools. Free schools will probably be created elsewhere, in areas that are already stocked with quite decent and reasonable schools.

Even if we can force ourselves to ignore the slim evidence and the implausibility of some of the arguments, we should not blind ourselves to the risks involved. Those risks have been mentioned here and in the other place. They include the risk of a two-tier education system—the word “apartheid” has been used—and the risk of knock-on consequences for other schools. A number of Members have also mentioned the risks to special educational needs and support services. I also invite Members to inspect the Bill’s treatment of charity law, which could create the risk of profiteering skewing schooling at some time in the future. There is also a risk of diminished public accountability for a public resource, and an enormous risk in the current circumstances, with the £150 billion deficit, that we might lose economies of scale and consequently spend more money to less effect. Furthermore, we might have to bear the huge capital cost of providing extra buildings while underusing the present buildings in an anarchic, unplanned education market.

[Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)]

My hon. Friend seems to be constructing an argument that freedom is a bad thing. He has described a number of risks, and yes, there are risks, but surely life involves risk. Does he not agree that the word “liberal” is derived from “liberty”? I find it confusing and surprising that he is making such a strong case against liberty.

[Dr Pugh]

I have never thought that liberalism had anything to do with precipitate, foolish and unresearched activity. I am not in any way suggesting that that is what we have here, but I am saying that there are valid reasons for an essentially rational liberal to make fair and cautious points about where we might be going with this, and to want to be assured that what we are doing will have the consequences that we expect.

There are risks involved, many of which have been voiced in the other place as well as here. To be fair, Ministers have tried to forestall those risks, privately and publicly, and to placate people with their mellifluous tones. I welcome that and I accept it; it is a good thing, as it encourages rational discourse. But, however convinced or unconvinced we might be, what negates all those assurances and soothing words, and what gives the game away and convinces me that this is a semblance, and a rational coating perhaps disguising an unbending ideology—although I hope not—and a visceral dislike of local authorities, is not the words that Ministers have used but the haste with which they have moved.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tom Blenkinsop (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Lab)]

We have heard excellent speeches from both sides of the House, but I rise with feelings of real unease about the proposals in this Bill. My unease is real as my constituents’ children will be denied the promise, via Building Schools for the Future funding, of a new secondary school in the town of Guisborough. This school is already the largest on Teesside and, under BSF, it would have partnered a state-of-the-art special needs school on the same campus, serving the whole of East Cleveland. My unease is also real because the Bill contains provisions to allow new, highly dubious and experimental schools to flourish, while schools like the Laurence Jackson, which has given decades of service to our local community, are being actively undermined by the Con-Dem coalition.

I also feel anger as these new academies will be allowed to flourish in a deliberate attempt to marginalise old, long-established local education authorities. Indeed, the new academies will also flourish at the real expense of the equally long-established and highly regarded diocesan school structure, which gave the Church of England and the Roman Catholic community a direct input into education.

I am particularly concerned about the Bill’s implications for the further growth of faith schools—in the context of the recent history of academies, this really means fundamentalist Christian groups—and their ability to deploy significant funds to endow academies. In my constituency, we already have the King’s academy, based in the Middlesbrough estate of Coulby Newham. That school was the brainchild of the Vardy Foundation, which I would describe as an evangelist group. To its credit, the foundation adheres to the national curriculum at the King’s academy—and in other schools it controls—although it has in the past hit local authority headlines for things such as allegedly banning Harry Potter books from the school library. The King’s academy is popular with parents—partly, I believe, because it still organises its classes around the national curriculum. However, this Bill removes that condition. Although I do not believe that the Vardy Foundation will change its stance, the ability to do so is entrenched by this Bill.

Put simply, this deregulation of public education will significantly increase the power and influence of any fringe movement. Worse still, these changes may turn out to be irreversible, entrenching views held by only a small minority and allowing them to be propagated.

[Steve Baker]

Speaking as a committed Christian, I am most surprised to hear the hon. Gentleman talking in these terms about minorities. If Conservative Members spoke in these terms about different minorities, I am sure he would be quick to condemn us. Although I am a committed Christian, I spent yesterday evening in the mosque. I was happy to be there with those gentlemen; I get on terribly well with them. I ask the hon. Gentleman to use more moderate language in his description of Christians. I think Christians in this country have had enough; they deserve to be treated with the same sort of respect that the hon. Gentleman would expect for any minority.

[Tom Blenkinsop]

Speaking as a Christian myself—a Roman Catholic Christian—I take the hon. Gentleman’s words into account. However, I am not making any allegations about minorities; I am talking about checks and balances for all minorities with respect to other minorities.

Put simply, the deregulation of public education will significantly increase the power and influence of any fringe movement. Worse still, as I said, these changes may turn out to be irreversible, entrenching views held by only a small minority, allowing them to be propagated to young and impressionable children under the veil of accepted educational practice. Such potential developments fill me with great fear. I can see the perverse realisation of young children, some of primary age, being taught or indoctrinated with views that border on the near fanatical—and possibly in totally unsuitable premises. There are also curriculum-related concerns about such matters as the teaching of creationism, and the total absence of any compulsion to ensure that elements of personal, social or health education are taught. I believe that some clauses will serve as a Trojan horse in that regard.

Earlier, I referred to maintained schools that are managed by their respective dioceses. I should say that I am a product of Roman Catholic primary, secondary and sixth-form education. Those schools worked in harmony with the local education authority, not against it or separately from it. The same applies to self-governing further education and sixth-form colleges. The National Governors Association, the National Grammar Schools Association, the Catholic board of education and many major charities are now urging the coalition to slow down their consultation for precisely that reason. Indeed, the Liberal Democrat Education Association opposes the Bill.

None of those organisations asked for the Bill, and I suspect that, with good reason, they will be wary and fearful of what may result from it. It could lead to the creation of religious academies which, unlike maintained faith schools, would lack the moderating and sensible constraints and influence of local communities. Such academies would be separate from society, big or otherwise. Unamended and without clarification, the Bill would allow academies run by religious groups to devise and use their own curriculums, to the exclusion of arguments and facts that might question the minority beliefs of those groups. Some provisions might well allow academies to discriminate against children in their admissions policies on the basis of their perception of parental beliefs.

As I said earlier, mainstream faith schools will be fearful of some of the ideas contained in the Bill. Some of its provisions could ride roughshod over them. Clause 5(8) would force a state-maintained school with a religious character—a faith school—automatically to become an independent school with that religious character. It would permanently remove any possibility that state-funded religious schools could choose to become inclusive academies. Such draconian and one-sided powers would remove any element of choice and freedom from the existing school governing body, and thus run counter to the parts of the Bill that refer to increasing the autonomy of schools.

The dialectic between appearance and reality seems to be a recurring theme in the coalition Government. When it comes to consultation, they give the appearance of thoughtful, reticent appreciation of the opinions of all who will potentially be involved, while in reality—in contravention of the procedure for potentially controversial legislation—the Bill was introduced in the House of Lords and then rushed through, and is likely to be given even less time in this place. Indeed, the Secretary of State’s insistence that its passage must be completed before the summer recess may mean only four days of scrutiny.

Will the coalition trot out the same old mantras? Will they say that this is necessary because of the deficit, or that it is the new politics of radical reform? That is more than likely. The “words of appearance” will give birth to a reality of fringe interests. Representatives of such interests, often with deep pockets, will muscle in on the people’s education system, presumably at the expense of the pay, terms and conditions of workers in that system.

Professional school support staff play a vital role in every school, although they are often part-time and low-paid. As a result of the Bill, school support staff as well as teachers would be directly employed by the new academies. That would take staff outside nationally agreed and recognised pay and conditions, leaving them much more vulnerable to cuts, poor working conditions and, fundamentally, uncertainty. Support staff would not be covered by the new School Support Staff Negotiating Body, which has been developed over several years to deliver long-awaited fairness and consistent, decent equal pay for classroom support work that has increased in terms of both scope and demand.