To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families what his latest assessment is of progress on the Academies programme; and if he will make a statement.

There are now 203 academies open in 83 local authorities with up to a further 100 opening in 2010. Evidence from independent reports by PricewaterhouseCoopers; Ofsted and the National Audit Office show academies are working. For academies with results in 2008 and 2009 the increase in the proportion of pupils achieving at least five A*-C GCSEs including English and maths is 5.0 percentage points, an increase on last year's academy improvement rate of 4.3 percentage points and double the average national increase.