---

Business of the House

May I draw the Leader of the House’s attention to early-day motion 1856? [That this House is concerned at the enormous potential expenditure in taking the academy programme to 400 schools with its heavy subsidies to miscellaneous private sponsors provided on the basis of unproven, possibly unjustified, assumptions about resulting improvements to education in disadvantaged areas; urges the establishment of an independent inquiry to evaluate the performance of academies, compared to modernised state schools to assess whether any improvements are more than a temporary Hawthorne effect, to assess the effects of academies on neighbouring schools, and the overall performance of the education authority, to examine the value for money of academies as opposed to spending the same sums on secondary schools more generally, and to look at ways to merge the two systems, academies and local authority schools in order to ensure the unified development of the system and avoid further divisions in public education.] May I also draw her attention to early-day motion 605? Those two early-day motions express the growing concern in the House about the apparent headlong rush by the Government into promoting academies, which are now to number 400. The construction of such academies appears to have no ultimate cost, apart from a global figure of £35,000 to £40,000, and there is no real evidence about their efficacy. Will she draw the attention of the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families to those important matters, and arrange a debate as early as possible?