Academies Bill [HL]

My Lords, I am supported in my amendment by my noble friend Lady Williams of Crosby. This amendment, although different in terminology, covers much the same ground as what was the Amendment 4 that I moved in Committee. I do not propose to rehearse in detail the arguments that I then advanced in favour of that amendment. Suffice it to say that the nub of this amendment is to ensure that before any academy is converted from a maintained school or created completely afresh, the Secretary of State shall take a strategic view of the need for such an academy and, in particular, shall be required to consider its potential impact on other schools —plainly those in the vicinity. It is commonplace to observe that a brand new academy will have to draw its pupils from somewhere. The amendment will require the Secretary of State, in considering whether to grant a request for a school, to consider how that could impact on other good schools in the vicinity. Therefore, the amendment is bang in line with an oft repeated objective of the coalition. In the words of my right honourable friend Michael Gove, we have the most segregated education system of almost any sophisticated democratic country and we need to raise up those who go to schools in underprivileged circumstances. I pay tribute to the previous Labour Government, who strove manfully to do just that, by the creation of the first wave of academy schools. That is the purpose of the amendment. Not to have such a vital consideration plainly and simply in the Bill would be wrong. I take into account what my noble friend Lord Hill said in Committee, namely that it was his and the Government's view that even without an amendment of this kind they would be under a duty to consider the impact of new academies on neighbouring schools. However, it is a good rule for legislators not to leave principle measures out of a Bill, not least because many of those who in future have to make the Bill work, such as headmasters, governors and local education authorities, will not have access to expert education lawyers who can pick up some of the implications that my noble friend Lord Hill rightly said were in the undergrowth of the Bill. This measure is designed to make plain what is implied. Finally, I have drafted the amendment to make it clear that it is not the only consideration to be taken into account by the Secretary of State in considering an application for an academy school—it is one inter alia. The prospects to which the amendment relates are important, and there will be a significant number of situations where the amendment will allow sensible, long-term strategic planning of our secondary school system and of our primary school system—but particularly of our secondary school system. I hope that it will commend itself to the House and to the Minister. I beg to move.