UK Parliament / Open data

Academies Bill [Lords]

Proceeding contribution from Lord Barwell (Conservative) in the House of Commons on Monday, 19 July 2010. It occurred during Debate on bills on Academies Bill [Lords].
I agree with my hon. Friend. I should like to address a couple of questions to the Minister. First, the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Tristram Hunt), who has now left the Chamber, made some good points about the importance of academic qualifications, although they were rather at odds with the record of the Labour Government. I understand that the Government have now accepted an amendment in the Lords to ensure that academies are counted as public bodies under freedom of information legislation. I believe that there is an issue in relation to the impact on local councils. May we have more clarity on what areas of council spending will not be devolved down to academies? The Secretary of State spoke earlier about the role of local authorities. My own council often finds itself defending schools that are not performing particularly well. I would much rather that local authorities were the champion of parents in their area and stood up for higher standards, rather than making the case for schools that were underperforming. On consultation, we do not want a bureaucratic arrangement that is going to slow the process down. Like my hon. Friend the Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss), I am keen to see progress made quickly. However, it is important to have consultation, and not just with parents in the school in question. When we try to change things in schools, we often find that the existing parents might have one view, while parents in the community around the school who are unhappy with the school might have a completely different one. The Bill places before us this fundamental question: what is the best way to raise standards in our schools? I particularly admired the comments of the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman), the former Chairman of the Select Committee. In complete contrast to the shadow Secretary of State's political speech, he recognised that Members on both sides of the House have a passion for driving up education standards, and that we simply disagree about the best way to do it. That is a reasonable disagreement that should be aired and debated in the Chamber, and we should not imply that some people simply do not care about the issue. The fundamental question is what is the best way to raise school standards. The previous Government believed that the best way was by driving standards from the top down. Indeed, in the debate in the other place, Opposition Members were clear that the improvements made by academies were the result of their getting all the Government attention. They almost suggested that it was the Department for Education that was responsible for those improvements. Our belief is that the best way to drive up standards is to allow a choice of schools. There should be some surplus places to allow people to choose, and we must give schools freedom so that they can differentiate and offer parents different things. Different children might well benefit from different styles of education. We should empower parents in that way and give them that choice. That bottom-up approach is the way to drive up standards, not the top-down approach of the previous Government. It is with great pleasure that I speak in favour of the Bill, which I believe will make a profound difference to parents and children across our country.

About this proceeding contribution

Reference

514 c101-2 

Session

2010-12

Chamber / Committee

House of Commons chamber
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