Academies Bill [Lords]

It is customary to commence a Third Reading debate with congratulations to hon. Members of all parties on the excellence of their speeches; to departmental officials and external advisers on the cogency of their briefing, and to you, Mr Speaker and your Deputies on your conduct of the proceedings. Tonight must be no different. Therefore, on behalf of the shadow Education Ministers and all Labour Members, I commend all those who have taken part in the debates, with a special mention to my hon. Friends the Members for Gateshead (Ian Mearns) and for North West Durham (Pat Glass) for their contributions, as well as—the list is only partial, from the speeches that I have heard—the hon. Members for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy), for Beverley and Holderness (Mr Stuart), for St Ives (Andrew George), for North Cornwall (Dan Rogerson), for Portsmouth South (Mr Hancock) and for Bradford East (Mr Ward). However, normally those tributes are paid after weeks of post-Second Reading scrutiny—after many days of Committee deliberations and hours of scrutiny on Report. Those weeks of debate in Parliament are important because, although consensus may not be reached on every point, everyone can feel that they have raised issues, aired concerns and had their say. Not so with this Bill. In the opinion of my hon. Friends and I, and many outside experts, the flawed and rushed provisions in the Bill risk ripping apart the community-based comprehensive education system that we have built in this country over decades. We fear that the Bill will make things worse for our schools, our children's futures and the cohesion of our communities, yet it has been railroaded through from Second Reading to Third Reading in just seven days, with just three days in Committee, and following unprecedentedly constricted debates in the other place. There has been no time for proper debate or scrutiny, no Report, and no amendments have been allowed, and hon. Members on both sides of the House have had no opportunity to correct some of the Bill's worst excesses. Three weeks ago, we had the unedifying sight of the Secretary of State having to apologise twice to the House because of his rushed and discourteous handling of his school buildings cancellation. It is a pity that he has not learned that rushing through unfair or ill-thought through policies does him no credit. As I said on Second Reading just seven days ago, the Secretary of State was clearly fearful of what proper parliamentary scrutiny would throw up about the Bill. As the hon. Member for Southport (Dr Pugh) said earlier from the Government Benches, ““We have the spectacle of Ministers who have already told us that they will accept no amendment, period, and the sight of Whips new and old cracking their knuckles off-stage and perfecting basilisk-like stares in the mirror.””[Hon. Members: ““What?””] I have no clue what that means, but it sounds very bad to me. If the hon. Gentleman were in the Chamber, I would be happy for him to intervene to tell us. He is a Liberal Democrat, so clearly, among those on the Government Benches, not only the Chair of the Select Committee on Education is deeply critical the handling of the Bill. The Opposition are very proud of the biggest school-building programme since the Victorian era, of the best generation of teachers we have ever had in our country, and of the hard work of children, parents and teachers. That has delivered the biggest increase in standards for many years. We have gone from fewer than half of schools not reaching the basic standard to just one in 12 over the past 10 years. It is our firm view that the Bill will create an unfair, two-tier education system, and gross unfairness in funding. Standards will not rise but fall, and fairness and social cohesion will be undermined.