Speeches by O'Brien.

“Q What I am getting at is that we need to change the Bill as it is currently drafted by officials, in order to achieve those things. Leora Cruddas: Yes, I would say that was true.”

“Q On pay and conditions, you might think that the idea of a floor, not a ceiling, is a decent direction of travel, but to be clear, that is not where the Bill is now and it needs to change. That is my position. Leora Cruddas: Again, I would cite the Secretary of State’s evidence to the Select Committee, where she made …”

“Q Would an amendment to that effect be helpful to preserve those freedoms? Leora Cruddas: It would be very helpful to have clarity on that position. Obviously, we have not had the curriculum and assessment review report yet. I have absolute confidence that Professor Francis will be eminently sensible. She is a very ser…”

“Q But in adjusting to that, some schools might face severe adjustments or even need new capital, facilities and stuff— Leora Cruddas: That is exactly right. Under this legislation, we could end up with a high-level national curriculum framework—once again, as I said on pay and conditions, with a floor but no ceiling. T…”

“Q I have a quick one for Leora on academies’ freedom with the curriculum. Some trusts not far from my constituency have used those freedoms quite strongly. They have deliberately focused on the core academics. In some cases, they do not necessarily even have the facilities to provide the national curriculum—if they are…”

“Q That is a potential problem for a small rural school. Rebecca Leek: It is a real problem for small rural schools particularly. They function really well in little pockets of two or three schools together, with maybe one executive head dealing with some of the headaches—because there are headaches—and with some things…”

“Q That is very helpful. You have run both types of school and have said that when you were running local authority-run schools, you were often told, “No, we cannot do that”, even when the action would solve a problem and benefit our pupils, and even though you can see the academy down the road doing exactly that. What …”

“Q You said: “We accept current arrangements are fractured: introducing the Schools Adjudicator worsens rather than improves this”. What do you mean by that? Leora Cruddas: We are not sure what the intention is behind the Government’s need to bring forward the clause in the Bill that would introduce greater powers for a…”

“Q That is very helpful and specific. Another thing you have raised concerns about is clause 50, which will give local authorities the ability to challenge a school’s PAN, even if it is just keeping it the same. I am sympathetic and understand what they are trying to do, with place planning and so on, but I have concern…”

“Q Thank you all for being here, and welcome. My first question is to Leora. We heard in the last session some concerns about taking away academy freedoms on pay, the curriculum and QTS. In some of the things that you have written, you have also raised concerns about two other things. The first is clause 43, which is a …”

“Q Would you say that the Bill, broadly speaking, erodes that kind of freedom and diversity in the system? That is at the moment, as drafted—it can change. Luke Sparkes: Certainly, around the areas that I have just described.”

“Having looked at that document, it does have a whole bunch of different maximums in it. It has quite specific maximums as well as minimums. Sir Jon Coles: The thing about the schoolteachers’ pay and conditions document is that it is fundamentally a contract. Section 122 of the Education Act 2002—it happens to be an Act…”

“Q Thank you for being here. I want to direct my first question to Jon and Dan. You have both been quite critical of the loss of academy freedoms in this Bill. Could I persuade you to say a bit more about why that matters? Why do those freedoms matter? What do they enable you to do? Do you accept reassurances from the G…”

“Q One of the major changes in the Bill is the extension of the national curriculum, for the first time, to absolutely all schools. At the same time, the curriculum is being changed and rewritten. I have a high-level question and a specific one. The high-level one is about the different visions for our schools. One visi…”

“Q I just wondered whether we might get an answer during the passage of the Bill. I have a question for both of you. There was a thought-provoking leader in the TES the other morning that talked about the lack of discussion in the Bill, as well as more generally, on discipline. The Bill is largely silent on discipline, …”

“Q Do you have a timescale for when the Government are going on reply to that consultation? Paul Barber: I do not—that is not in my hands.”

“Q Thank you both for coming. My first question is to you, Paul. The last Government promised to lift the cap on faith school admissions and consulted on doing just that. Is that something you would still like to happen and potentially be put into the Bill? Paul Barber: The cap is a policy rather than law. We would very…”

“Q Thank you for coming. Are there any things in the Bill that you think we should amend as it goes through? Are there things that you would like to improve further, or any ways that you would like us to change the Bill? Why don’t we start with Lynn? Lynn Perry: The coalition broadly welcomes the potentially transformat…”

“Q The Bill will remove the academy order. How will the intervention regime work in future? At the moment, the Ofsted handbook states that “if any key judgement is inadequate…we will place the school in a formal category of concern.” How will that work in future? If a school is in the bottom tier of one of your new cate…”

“Q Do you recognise that sometimes a school can bring someone in who might be at a later point in their career and be highly specialised—perhaps a great sportsman, an IT person or a scientist—and that if the headteacher takes the view that they would be a good person for teaching, as an alternative to having no teacher,…”