Academies Bill [Lords]

I beg to move,"That this House declines to give a Second Reading to the Academies Bill [Lords] because it creates the legal framework for the expensive free market schools reforms which will be funded by scrapping existing school building programmes; its approach is based on reforms in other countries which have seen falling standards and rising inequality; it contains no measures to drive up standards, improve discipline or deliver greater equality in schools; it fails to build on the success of the previous Government's Academies programme and instead focuses additional support and resources on those schools that are already succeeding at the expense of the majority of schools; it deprives schools with the biggest behaviour and special educational needs challenges of local authority support for special needs provision, the funding for which will go to those with the fewest such challenges; it permits selective schools to convert to Academy status, which risks the unplanned expansion of selective education; it removes any proper requirement to consult local authorities or the community before the creation of an Academy and centralises power in the hands of the Secretary of State over the future of thousands of schools without adequate provision for local accountability." The Secretary of State and I have seen a great deal of each other across the Dispatch Box in recent weeks. I said to him two weeks ago that the cancellation of the Building Schools for the Future programme was a black day for our country's schools. Since then, he has had a torrid fortnight. He has gone from under fire to embattled to beleaguered in only 15 days. The Secretary of State may think that the recess is in sight, but the backlash that his statement kicked off two weeks ago has only just begun, and the rushed and flawed provisions in the Bill will make things much worse for our schools and our children in the coming months. Having had to apologise twice for his announcement two weeks ago and his rushed and botched decision, even his senior Back Benchers are asking why he is so contemptuously trying to railroad his academies and free schools policy through the House in only four days. The reason is that the right hon. Gentleman, who can never answer a question, is also afraid of scrutiny. Let me tell the House what is really going on. Today and over the next week, the Opposition will show that the Bill will create unfair and two-tier education in this country. There will be gross unfairness in funding, standards will not rise but fall, and fairness and social cohesion will be undermined. The Bill will mean that funding is diverted to the strongest schools to convert to academy status, and to fund hundreds of new free-market schools, and that the role for the local authority in planning places, allocating capital or guaranteeing fairness or social cohesion is entirely removed. The weakest schools, children from the poorest communities, and children with a special need and those with a disability, will be left to pick up the pieces with old buildings, fewer teachers and larger class sizes. The fact is that the Bill will rip apart the community-based comprehensive education system that we have built in the past 60 years, which has delivered record rising standards in the last decade. To rush the Bill through in this way is a complete abuse of Parliament. The Secretary of State should be ashamed of himself. We will challenge this coalition—Conservatives and Liberal Democrats—to support our amendment and put a halt to this deeply ideological, free-market experiment before it is all too late.