Academies Bill [Lords]

I begin by paying tribute to the Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, my hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr Hayes). I class him as a good friend. He is a kind and courteous man and I am sure that my daughter Hattie will be very pleased that she has been mentioned in the House again. He is more than welcome to join us for ““Toy Story 3””—indeed, I see him as the Buzz Lightyear of the coalition Government. To infinity and beyond! May I clarify a point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Gateshead (Ian Mearns), who was in the Chamber assiduously this afternoon, until I got up, when he left? He mentioned that his area produces angels, and in many respects he is right—Gateshead is a fantastic place—but I think that he was referring to the angel of the north, which is a strong and proud icon of our region of the north-east, and I should point out to the Committee that the angel of the north was fabricated in Hartlepool. That is an important point. I shall be brief, because there is not a lot of time left and there is a lot of work still to do. It was very important that we had considerable debates on Building Schools for the Future and on special educational needs. Clause 7 requires that where the Secretary of State approves a maintained school's application to become an academy, the local authority must determine whether, immediately before the conversion date, the school has a surplus and, if so, the amount of the surplus. Once that is done, the local authority must pay the surplus over to the proprietor of the academy. Subsection (4) states that regulations may be brought forward on how the payment of any identified surplus could be made and subsection (5) lists what those regulations can include. An important part of those regulations would be the manner in which the proprietor of the academy can apply to the Secretary of State for a review of the determinations. I argued in Committee last night that the nature of the Bill is to force schools to consider that their most important relationship is not with local parents or pupils but the Secretary of State. This is a centralising Bill that concentrates power and decisions into the office of the Secretary of State. The Opposition think that there should be more independence from Whitehall and more power for local people, which could include the proprietor of the academy. On that basis, amendment 61 would replace the idea of the proprietor going directly to the Secretary of State to ask for a review and allow the owner of the new academy to appeal to a local commissioner. Amendment 64 would make it clear that the term ““local commissioner”” has the same meaning as that given by section 23 of the Local Government Act 1974, which essentially means the local government ombudsman. That is a well-recognised route for conducting investigations into local matters and gives a degree of impartiality and independence because the local commissioners are appointed by the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government. We think that the Secretary of State for Education, under the provisions in the Bill, is responsible for a number of things, namely entering into an academy arrangement, making an academy order and reviewing the transfer of school circumstances among other things. There does not seem to be any effective challenge to the single authority of the Secretary of State, which is one reason why we have tabled the amendments. The inclusion of the word ““review”” is also somewhat vague and does not give reassurance and confidence to the proprietor of the academy, or to anybody else for that matter, that a proper procedure will be followed. Amendments 62 and 63 would strengthen the wording of the Bill by leaving out the word ““review”” and inserting the word ““appeal””, which gives a sense, in our opinion, that a proper and transparent process must be adhered to. The amendments would not increase any bureaucratic burden on any interested party, but they would provide a degree of certainty and reassurance for stakeholders, particularly the proprietor of the new academy. For that reason, I am interested to hear what the Minister has to say about the amendments, and I commend them to the Committee.