Academies Bill [HL]

Well, another Morgan rises. This is a very interesting amendment. It has prompted quite a fascinating debate at the end of the passage of this Bill. For me the question is: what do we really want this annual report to look at? Is it the free market, free school experiment in which we replicate the experience of Sweden so we can see by evaluating the impact on standards, as they did in Sweden, how standards fell markedly, or the expansion of the very successful Labour Government’s academy programme and how the coalition Government have learnt from that and further driven up standards based on our expertise and experience? There are lots of different ways of looking at this report. I am very much in favour of ensuring that we have the data to evaluate the impact of government policy, that it is properly scrutinised and that Parliament has the opportunity to debate the outcome of that work. What would most interest me is a commitment from the Minister that we will debate this policy of expanding or morphing Labour’s academy programme to encompass outstanding schools and its impact, and have some hard data to back up the debate. We are having a conversation around this House that will carry on for some years. It would be good if that were to be supported by hard data. In the past, we have also had real concerns about the impact on children with disabilities and special educational needs, and on children in care. The ability to shine a light on the impact of the policy on their experiences and outcomes would also be of help. I am therefore sure that if that means we are actually going to do something with the data, I would support that. If there are annual reports that have not been published but should have been, I am sure that they are in the process of being compiled and we will see them coming on stream very shortly.