Education and Adoption Bill — House of Commons, 2015-06-22
Topic: Education
Wesley Paul William Streeting (Labour, Centre-left): I am grateful for the intervention, because the hon. Gentleman makes precisely the point that I am trying to make and reflects the narrow-minded ideologically driven view that the only route to improvement is academisation. That is exactly what the Bill presents us with. What we had before was the flexibility to look at the particular circumstances of a school and decide whether it was right that it should be converted to an academy or remain part of the local authority family, or whether other means for improvement should be considered. The Bill would remove the flexibility that the previous Secretary of State exercised in the case of the local primary school in my borough and would compel it to become an academy, which may or may not be the right way forward. If the hon. Gentleman is on the Bill Committee, perhaps I can gain his support for amendment along those lines Other hon. Members have referred to the oversight and inspection of academy chains. Following on from the intervention, it is right that there are some fantastic academy chains which are providing great service to the schools within their family—chains such as Ark and the Harris federation, which are in the business of education for the right reasons. They want to tackle educational inequality and improve life chances and educational outcomes, and those chains do a fantastic job. But I still cannot fathom why Ministers are not listening to the concerns that have been raised by the Sutton Trust and Sir Michael Wilshaw, and even some of the evidence produced by the Department itself, which is that we are doing some schools no service at all by trapping them in academy chains that are failing them. Why do we not open them up to the rigour of inspection? Why do we set academy chains apart and not require them to achieve the same high standards and undergo the same inspections as others do This is the contradiction in the Government’s approach. They present Labour Members as taking a narrow-minded ideologically driven dogmatic approach, but it is actually the Government that are taking that approach. It is they who are making an assumption that academy chains can do no wrong, whereas we acknowledge that there is good and bad right across the mixed economy of education. We can accept that. Why cannot the Government do so, and why are they not addressing that question in the Bill Contrary to what the Government have said, academies do not always outperform local authority-maintained schools on educational improvement. Of course anyone who wants to skew the statistics in a certain way can draw the conclusion that they want, but the Government should look at the research produced by the National Foundation for Educational Research and others, which compares schools like for like. If we compare similarly performing schools, like for like, and examine them within the context of local authority-maintained schools or academy chain schools, there is not much difference between the two. If there is to be a more evidence-based approach to the debate, Members need to examine the evidence rather than simply parroting propaganda produced in a remarkably poor fashion by the Whips of the governing party Finally, I want to mention the definition of "coasting". The hon. Member for Fareham (Suella Fernandes) gave the House what she thought was a very good definition of the term, and in some cases I might even agree with her. I know that she is being billed as a rising star in her party, but with the greatest respect, she is not yet the Education Secretary. We have not heard a definition of coasting schools from either the Secretary of State or Ministers, even though their Bill is now before the House of Commons for its Second Reading and the concept of coasting schools is at its centre. Perhaps the hon. Lady should be on the Government Front Bench, because she is providing the answers that her Ministers are not. For now, however, we have absolutely no idea what coasting schools are, how they will be judged and measured, and how the Secretary of State will intervene to improve them apart from through forced academisation, which I have already said might not be the best way forward. Why on earth those on the Treasury Bench expect us to troop into the Lobby with them to support the Second Reading of such a half-baked Bill I do not know. They need to be a bit more reasonable in their expectations The Bill also says absolutely nothing about the people on the fringes of education. For example, there are 17,000 pupils in pupil referral units, only 1.4% of whom will get five good GCSEs. Where do they figure in the Bill? How are their needs going to be addressed? And of course, the Bill is simply looking at the problems that exist now, rather than at the education system of the future. For the Conservatives’ first education Bill since they entered Government to have such a narrow focus shows a real lack of imagination. In this century, this country will have to work and compete very hard on the global stage for the jobs of the future. That will require all our young people to go through an excellent, world-class education system that thinks hard about pedagogy and about the manner and the environment in which we teach in a rapidly changing world. There is absolutely nothing about that context in the Bill. It is a narrow, ill-defined Bill that is unworthy of a Second Reading. I might have been in the House only a short time, but I know a half-baked Bill when I see one. It is time for our coasting Ministers to provide better definitions before turning up with such a Bill.