Education and Inspections Bill
3:00 pm
Greg Mulholland (Shadow Minister (Schools), Education & Skills; Leeds North West, Liberal Democrat)
Thank you, Mr. Cook.
At a local level, people have to make decisions that they believe will be in the interests of their local community. Let us be realistic—because this and earlier Governments have been so centralising, every local authority has to work within the framework of legislation. If they have to make certain decisions within that framework, that is perfectly reasonable.
I go back to my previous point on the influence of private sponsors. I still do not feel that that question has been adequately dealt with, particularly given that when the academy proposals were first suggested, 20 per cent. of the cost was going to be met by private sponsors. That ended up being about £2 million, when the cost of the academies was up to £38 million. Yet the same influence over the curriculum, staffing decisions and ethos is still there. How can that possibly be called local accountability?
I ask the Minister one simple question. She is well aware of, and has acknowledged in debates, the issue of results in respect of academies, specifically relating to the issue of intake, powerfully raised by Professor Stephen Gorard of York university in his evidence to the Select Committee. There are also other issues, such as exclusions. What will the Minister do to give people confidence that the academies will not have a distorting effect on local education provision as a whole? That is why we tabled amendment No. 70, which is key.
If parents want academies under the current system, they should have them. However, if they are not wanted by parents or local authorities, they should not be imposed. There should not be extra financial incentives to influence the decision, as there clearly have been through “building schools for the future”. We want the Minister to say that academies are not a panacea. They are still unproven and there are serious issues that need to be resolved.