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Education and Inspections Bill

We seem to touch again and again on academies. I warmly support for the whole academy initiative; I believe it is a brave one and that in our areas of greatest need, we should be prepared to be bold and put resources into new initiatives. But there is a concern about the extent to which they should be separate from other schools, perhaps when it comes to poor performance. My reading is that the academies are going to the areas where schools have failed and where the difficulties of success on behalf of the children are greatest. One must be prepared to accept that it will take time to pull those schools around. But if, after I do not know how many years, it is not working, then in the interests of the children and the community, that school should close, and the £2 million put in by the sponsors repaid if need be. Whatever the circumstances, we must put the interests of the children first.