Academies Bill [HL]

We turn now to the issue of free schools. As I said a moment ago, I am very grateful to the Minister for making the Statement repeating the Answer given to the Urgent Question asked in the other place, and for taking such a comprehensive set of questions. However, the Statement has generated more questions than answers. I am sure that as we go on in Committee we will learn a lot more. Even the disinterested passer-by cannot help but notice that free schools are a flagship policy of the coalition Government—or at least of the Conservative part of the coalition Government. The Prime Minister and the Secretary of State were clearly delighted to be photographed during the election campaign with parents celebrating their promise of a new school on demand. It was great campaigning, I am sure that noble Lords will agree. A whole page of the Conservative manifesto was devoted to a case study of the Swedish education system, the model for the Government’s free school proposals. Actually, when I looked at it, most of the page was taken up by photographs—very nice too—but at least nominally there was a page on the subject. The Chancellor cited the reform as key to the Government’s plans to close the deficit, as it would see free schools use money more efficiently. The Secretary of State says that he has seen the future in Sweden and it works. The Government seem to want a great deal of attention focused on this policy, but considerably less scrutiny about the practicalities of it. We may be changing that today. Nowhere, however, in the pronouncements of the Secretary of State in connection with the Swedish-style free school reform, of which we have heard so much, has the Academies Bill been mentioned—until today. The Bill was announced under the headline, ““Legislation to give more schools opportunity to become academies””. The Department for Education website carries a document outlining the purpose of the Bill. It states: "““The Academies Bill will enable more schools to become Academies and give them the freedoms and flexibilities they need to continue to drive up standards””." The document makes no mention whatever of new providers entering the school system. The Explanatory Notes to Clause 1 state: "““This clause replaces similar existing provisions in section 482 of the EA 1996. It enables the Secretary of State to make ‘Academy arrangements’ with another person, to establish and run an Academy. That person will be funded by the Secretary of State further to either a contractual agreement (an ‘Academy agreement’) or, by new subsection (2)(b), through grant funding under section 14 of the Education Act 2002””." There is no mention of new providers here either, merely an oblique reference to previous legislation and ““other persons””. As the Minister pointed out just now during questions on the Statement, the clauses allow the Secretary of State to open a school, or to authorise anyone whom he sees fit to open a school, with almost no safeguards or undertakings. As the Secretary of State and the Minister know very well, that wholesale copy of the Swedish school model will not necessarily drive up standards in our schools. If the Minister has evidence that that is not the case, I would be very grateful to hear about it. I would also be interested to know where in the impact assessment evidence of the value of the Swedish model is set out. When Sweden tried the reforms on which this proposal is based, standards fell sharply. The new schools founded under Sweden's reforms educate children of educated parents to a greater extent than those from educationally disadvantaged backgrounds. They have opened in rented office blocks and former commercial properties. That is not just according to the critics of the scheme—that account came from the Swedish National Agency for Education, their equivalent of Ofsted. On the financial side, creating new schools and deliberately generating surplus places—as you will have to do to make them work—costs money. Without additional funding being promised, that will take money from existing schools. We have heard about a very small amount of money, which may suggest that the scheme may be more modest than the election campaigning suggested. There is also the question of capital. We will not see great new schools coming into being without tackling the issues mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Greaves. It is extraordinary that such a major change in approach to schooling in this country should be made in this way, where private companies will be invited to manage schools on behalf of groups of parents—although the message has now moved slightly to include groups of teachers—with no necessary regard to the well-being of children in nearby schools. At the start of Committee, we had an interesting debate about the name. Given all the PR, positioning and developing of the free school brand, it would be very helpful if we could be consistent about names here. If free schools are academies, let us call them academies, as noble Lords argued persuasively earlier. I am sure that we would all agree that there is no such thing as a free lunch or a free school. According to what I can glean from the Bill, the Explanatory Notes and so on, a free school is actually an academy without an academy agreement, so it is an exceptional academy. I would be grateful if the Minister could explain the intentions for free schools and the legislative process around the development of this flagship government policy. I beg to move.