Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answer of 24 May 2018 to Question 146286 on Academies, if he will make it his policy to allow failing academy schools to be placed back into local authority control.

We have no plans to consider returning schools back to local authorities. Indeed, as of March 2018 nearly 516,000 pupils now study in sponsored academies that are rated Good or Outstanding; they typically replaced underperforming maintained schools.

I firmly believe that becoming an academy can bring enormous benefits to schools and their pupils; coming together in a multi-academy trusts (MAT), sharing expertise, working collaboratively, driving improvements.

Hundreds of schools every year continue to voluntarily choose to become an academy and join a MAT.

The department is working on a range of methods and tools for building MAT capacity and assessing risk.