Academies Bill [Lords]

Speaking as a Christian myself—a Roman Catholic Christian—I take the hon. Gentleman's words into account. However, I am not making any allegations about minorities; I am talking about checks and balances for all minorities with respect to other minorities. Put simply, the deregulation of public education will significantly increase the power and influence of any fringe movement. Worse still, as I said, these changes may turn out to be irreversible, entrenching views held by only a small minority, allowing them to be propagated to young and impressionable children under the veil of accepted educational practice. Such potential developments fill me with great fear. I can see the perverse realisation of young children, some of primary age, being taught or indoctrinated with views that border on the near fanatic—and possibly in totally unsuitable premises. There are also curriculum-related concerns about such matters as the teaching of creationism, and the total absence of any compulsion to ensure that elements of personal, social or health education are taught. I believe that some clauses will serve as a Trojan horse in that regard. Earlier, I referred to maintained schools that are managed by their respective dioceses. I should say that I am a product of Roman Catholic primary, secondary and sixth-form education. Those schools worked in harmony with the local education authority, not against it or separately from it. The same applies to self-governing further education and sixth-form colleges. The National Governors Association, the National Grammar Schools Association, the Catholic board of education and many major charities are now urging the coalition to slow down their consultation for precisely that reason. Indeed, the Liberal Democrat Education Association opposes the Bill. None of those organisations asked for the Bill, and I suspect that, with good reason, they will be wary and fearful of what may result from it. It could lead to the creation of religious academies which, unlike maintained faith schools, would lack the moderating and sensible constraints and influence of local communities. Such academies would be separate from society, big or otherwise. Unamended and without clarification, the Bill would allow academies run by religious groups to devise and use their own curriculums, to the exclusion of arguments and facts that might question the minority beliefs of those groups. Some provisions might well allow academies to discriminate against children in their admissions policies on the basis of their perception of parental beliefs. As I said earlier, mainstream faith schools will be fearful of some of the ideas contained in the Bill. Some of its provisions could ride roughshod over them. Clause 5(8) would force a state-maintained school with a religious character—a faith school—automatically to become an independent school with that religious character. It would permanently remove any possibility that state-funded religious schools could choose to become inclusive academies. Such draconian and one-sided powers would remove any element of choice and freedom from the existing school governing body, and thus run counter to the parts of the Bill that refer to increasing the autonomy of schools. The dialectic between appearance and reality seems to be a recurring theme in the coalition Government. When it comes to consultation, they give the appearance of thoughtful, reticent appreciation of the opinions of all who will potentially be involved, while in reality—in contravention of the procedure for potentially controversial legislation—the Bill was introduced in the House of Lords and then rushed through, and is likely to be given even less time in this place. Indeed, the Secretary of State's insistence that its passage must be completed before the summer recess may mean only four days of scrutiny. Will the coalition trot out the same old mantras? Will they say that this is necessary because of the deficit, or that it is the new politics of radical reform? That is more than likely. The ““words of appearance”” will give birth to a reality of fringe interests. Representatives of such interests, often with deep pockets, will muscle in on the people's education system, presumably at the expense of the pay, terms and conditions of workers in that system. Professional school support staff play a vital role in every school, although they are often part-time and low-paid. As a result of the Bill, school support staff as well as teachers would be directly employed by the new academies. That would take staff outside nationally agreed and recognised pay and conditions, leaving them much more vulnerable to cuts, poor working conditions and, fundamentally, uncertainty. Support staff would not be covered by the new School Support Staff Negotiating Body, which has been developed over several years to deliver long-awaited fairness and consistent, decent equal pay for classroom support work that has increased in terms of both scope and demand.