White Paper amendment kills Opposition motion
Labour’s anti-forced academisation motion was made redundant yesterday as the Conservative amendment passed 302 to 204.
Ministers debated the Education Secretary’s White Paper in a House of Commons session which saw damning statements not only from the Opposition, but also from Tory backbenchers.
Shadow Education Secretary Lucy Powell kicked off the session, branding forced academisation as the most controversial proposal in the White Paper. Ms Powell said “The main thrust of forced, wholesale academisation, we cannot support,” adding that Head Teachers shouldn’t be spending time, money and energy on it.
The Labour MP also accused Mrs Morgan of being “selective with her figures” regarding academy performance, saying Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector Sir Michael Wilshaw has highlighted “serious weaknesses” in academy chains, which makes it “irresponsible” to proceed with the proposed changes.
The Education Secretary told MPs that Ms Powell is scaremongering and ignoring the achievements of the teaching profession, and said the Opposition had not actually read the White Paper. She also suggested Labour’s calculations on the costs of academy conversation are “completely wrong.” Last month, the Labour Party said the cost of conversion per school comes to £44,837, with the overall cost for the conversion of 15,632 schools being close to £700m. The Budget allocates £640m over four years for academisation costs and the new national funding formula. The Conversatives deemed Labour’s calculations as “shoddy”.
Towards the end of the session, Education Select Committee Chair Neil Carmichael suggested the government demonstrates what a good Multi-Academy Trust looks like and carefully explore the academisation framework.
The wording for both the motion and the amendment is as follows:
Schools White Paper
Jeremy Corbyn
Tom Watson
Lucy Powell
Nic Dakin
Mrs Sharon Hodgson
Dame Rosie Winterton
“That this House believes that every child deserves an excellent education; notes that the Government is proposing to force all primary and secondary schools in England to become academies as part of multi-academy trusts or chains by 2022 at the latest; further notes that the vast majority of schools affected by this policy will be primary schools, over 80 per cent of which are already rated good and outstanding; notes that there are outstanding academies and excellent community schools but also poor examples of both types of such school; further notes the Fourth Report from the Education Committee, Academies and free schools, Session 2014-15, HC 258, which highlights that there is no evidence that academisation in and of itself leads to school improvement; notes that the Schools White Paper proposes the removal of parent governors from school governing bodies which will reduce the genuine involvement of parents and communities in local schools; and calls on the Government to put these proposals on hold as there is insufficient evidence that they will raise standards.”
Amendment (a)
The Prime Minister
Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer
Secretary Nicky Morgan
Secretary Sajid Javid
Secretary Greg Clark
Nick Gibb
“Line 1, leave out from ‘education;’ to end and add ‘welcomes the transformation in England’s schools since 2010 where 1.4 million more children are now taught in good or outstanding schools; notes that the academies programme has been at the heart of that transformation because it trusts school leaders to run schools and empowers them with the freedom to innovate and drive up standards; further notes that there remain too many areas of underperformance and that more needs to be done to ensure that standards in England match those of its best international competitors; and therefore welcomes the Government’s proposals in its White Paper to further improve teacher quality, ensure funding is fairly distributed, tackle areas of chronic educational failure and devolve more power to heads and school leaders to ensure both they and parents have more of a voice in the running of their schools; and welcomes the commitment to achieve educational excellence everywhere.’.”