Academies Bill [Lords]

I want to speak to amendment 5, and to reinforce some of the points that have already been made about the importance of making real consultation mandatory. The Government are selling these proposals on the basis that they are about empowering communities, but they are specifically refusing to allow proper consultation with our communities. This is not about empowerment; it is about centralisation. The Department for Education website gives four handy steps towards conversion. First, the head teacher decides that he or she wants to opt out. Then the governors meet and pass a resolution. The Secretary of State then approves the proposal and the funding agreement. Finally, the Government order the local authority to cease maintaining the school. Then, as if by magic, the school is suddenly free. I am sure that most parents would find that rather alarming, and that they would want to have a direct say in the removal of their right to democratic influence through the severing of that link to the local authority. Proper consultation would enable reflection on accountability and governance, and on whether the freedoms that academy status brings would be used without disadvantage to other parts of the community. Despite all the nice rhetoric about the schools being free schools set up by those parents who want them, there is a real risk that they will drain resources away from other schools in the region. We need the kind of consultation that the amendment proposes if we are to ensure that that does not happen.