Academies Bill [HL]

My Lords, the House will be aware that I am now the Minister in charge of this Bill rather than my noble friend Lord Wallace of Saltaire, in whose name the Bill was introduced. I am happy to assure the House that I, too, believe that the provisions of this Bill are compatible with the convention rights and I would have been content to sign the necessary statement had I been in a position to do so when the Bill was introduced. This Bill will grant more freedoms to schools, give more responsibility to teachers and help to ensure that standards rise for all children. Last week we had an excellent debate on the measures contained in the gracious Speech. Rereading the whole debate over the weekend—that is the kind of pastime that I now find myself reduced to—I found that there was broad agreement on the need to trust professionals more, to reduce the bureaucracy that they face and to give them more opportunity to drive their own improvement and deploy resources in the most effective way. It is precisely those freedoms that the measures contained in the Academies Bill will help to deliver. I have had some very thoughtful discussions with the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Lincoln and others about managing expectations for this Bill, so let me be clear from the outset that the Bill does not in our view represent a revolution in our school system. Rather, it builds on what has gone before. We can trace its roots to the reforms introduced by my noble friend Lord Baker through the Education Reform Act 1988, which led to the opening of the first city technology colleges in the late 1980s and early 1990s. However, it was under a Labour Government that the pace of reform really picked up—I recognise that contribution very clearly. The Learning and Skills Act 2000 saw the beginning of the academies programme and the education White Paper of 2005 built on it. I hope that I will not embarrass the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, by saying what I said in his absence last week—how much I respect his achievement and what high standards he has set for those who have come after him. I am happy to pay tribute to him and to my other predecessors, who should feel pleased at the good that they have done through the academies programme and the thousands of children’s lives that they have already changed for the better. I am not arguing that academies will always be the answer. The noble Baroness, Lady Morris of Yardley, reminded us in the debate on the gracious Speech that many outstanding schools are not academies and that not all academies are outstanding—and she is, of course, right. Overall, however, academies represent one of the best and fastest routes to school improvement. They have transformed some of the worst-performing schools in the country into some of the best and, in doing so, they have transformed the prospects of tens of thousands of young people. In 2008-09, academies saw GCSE results increase twice as fast as the national average. It is also clear that the extension of the academies programme that we now propose seems to be what the previous Labour Government intended to do. In a speech given the day before the publication of the 2005 White Paper, the then Prime Minister, the right honourable Tony Blair, said: ""We need to make it easier for every school to acquire the drive and essential freedoms of Academies … We want every school to be able quickly and easily to become a self-governing independent state school … All schools will be able to have Academy style freedoms … No one will be able to veto parents starting new schools or new providers coming in, simply on the basis that there are local surplus places. The role of the LEA will change fundamentally"." It has taken five years, but this Bill is giving effect to what the previous Government intended. It is perhaps worth reminding ourselves why we need reform. Despite the best efforts of previous Governments, 81,000 11 year-olds still left primary school last year without achieving the required standard in reading. Half of young people left secondary school without achieving five good GCSEs including English and maths. In the last year for which we have data, out of 80,000 young people eligible for free school meals, just 45 made it to Oxbridge. Raising standards is not simply about structures, a point made well in last week’s debate; it is about the quality of teaching, which is why we will also build on the previous Government’s excellent Teach First programme. At a time of great pressure in public spending, we have prioritised investment in education by protecting front-line spending this financial year for Sure Start children’s centres, 16 to 19 learning and, of course, schools. However, giving schools and teachers more freedoms will help them to do the job that they came into teaching to do. The Bill will give all schools—including, for the first time, primary schools and special schools—the opportunity to apply to become an academy. I stress "opportunity"; this is largely a permissive rather than coercive Bill. Its aim is to help schools across the spectrum, from the very worst to the very best. Schools already rated as outstanding by Ofsted may have their applications fast-tracked and may open this year if they wish. In return, we will expect every outstanding school that acquires academy freedoms to partner with at least one other school, to raise performance across the system. Schools that are really struggling will see government intervention. There has always been a focus in the academies programme on the weakest schools, which will continue. The Bill will therefore allow the Secretary of State, where a school is struggling, to remove it from the control of the local authority and reopen it as an academy. That will mean that we should be able to deliver faster and deeper improvements in deprived and disadvantaged areas. For the schools in between—those doing well that could do better—academies will present a real opportunity to achieve excellent results through the core freedoms that all academies enjoy: making their own decisions about the curriculum, teachers’ pay, the length of the school day and how they spend the money that is currently spent on their behalf by local government. Again, it will be for head teachers, governing bodies and school trustees to decide whether to apply. I was struck by the following sentence in the speech made by the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan of Drefelin, last week: ""There is a good argument for successful schools being given more managerial autonomy and flexibility, provided that that is on the basis of fair admissions, fair funding and a recognition of their wider school improvement responsibilities".—[Official Report, 3/6/10; col. 382.]" That fair statement summed up well what we are trying to achieve with the Bill. I shall say a few things about what the Bill will not do. It will not help just a small proportion of pupils in leafy suburbs. The original focus of the academies programme on underperformance and deprivation will remain a key feature. The Bill will not allow a small number of schools to float free above the rest of the state school system. It should help all schools to improve standards by increasing the number of heads inspiring other heads and teachers learning from other teachers through greater partnerships between schools. It will not impinge on a school’s unique ethos or religious character if it becomes an academy. We want to give schools greater freedom and the preservation of a school’s unique ethos will be an important consideration in deciding whether to apply for academy status. That is also why the legislation ensures that, for foundation schools and voluntary schools with a foundation, consent must be gained from the trustees of a school’s foundation before it can apply to become an academy. The Bill does not provide a back door to selection, which is, I know, another concern of some noble Lords. While the small number of schools that are currently selective will be able to keep their selective status, non-selective schools, if they choose to become an academy, will not be able suddenly to become selective. A fair and open admissions policy will mean that intakes at academies will be diverse, inclusive and drawn from the local community. We will aim to ensure that the position with maintained special schools is mirrored. We want a special school that converts to an academy still to take only children with statements. The Bill will not disadvantage any maintained school financially, nor will there be extra funding for academies that maintained schools will not get. The Bill will not create a two-tier school system; indeed, we believe that it will help to close the gap in our current system. Most important, while it is not catered for in the Bill currently before noble Lords, we will also target resources on the poorest through a new pupil premium. That will take money from outside the schools budget to make sure that those teaching the children most in need get extra resources—for example, to deliver smaller class sizes, more one-to-one tuition, longer school days and more extra-curricular activities. In concluding, I will update noble Lords on the response that we have received from schools so far. In a little more than a week, more than 1,100 schools have expressed an interest in applying for academy freedoms. More than 620 outstanding schools, including more than 250 outstanding primaries and more than half of all outstanding secondary schools, have expressed their interest, along with more than 50 special schools. There seems to be real demand for the measures set out in the Bill. Our aim is to meet that demand and to ensure that heads and teachers have the freedoms that they want and need, that parents have the choice of a good local school and that a child’s background does not dictate whether they succeed. I know that this is a vision shared on all sides of the House. I am pleased to present the Bill for your Lordships’ consideration and I beg to move that the Bill be now read a second time.