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Education and Skills Bill

I and my Department are determined to keep the evidence on academies under review, to make sure that they are delivering the purpose for which they have been set up—that is, as I said earlier, educational excellence in areas that previously had too often been denied it. However, CTCs were the policy of the previous Conservative Government, not this one. They were not driven by the aim of extending opportunity into disadvantaged communities, and the evidence about them is as the hon. Gentleman suggests. I feel no need to defend CTCs, but I am happy to defend academies. I turn now to amendments (m) and (n). New clause 14 makes it clear that we want to require local authorities to make public reports on each school to the schools adjudicator. We believe that having that information in public, for people to see, is the right way to ensure compliance with the admissions code. As my hon. Friend the Member for Bury, North noted, school admissions forums can choose to have an annual report, and in our consultation on the regulations that follow from the new clause we will look very carefully at the content, form and timing of those reports and at their relationship to school admissions forums. We will consult on that in the summer, and we will also consult in detail on what the content of the reports should be. I do not think that it is right, as amendment (n) proposes, to specify that in primary legislation, but I can assure my hon. Friend that there will be a full and detailed consultation on what should be in the reports to the schools adjudicator. By the time those reports are complied, we will have had experience with local authorities around the country that have been asked to provide reports to the schools adjudicator for this year, in advance of the regulations. On the basis of that evidence, we will be able to see what we need to do in the regulations for next year. I therefore ask my hon. Friend to withdraw amendments (m) and (n). I deal now with new clauses 18, 20, 21 and 22. Earlier we had an important and lengthy debate about grammar schools. I understand that there are strong views on both sides of the argument about grammar schools among MPs who represent Kent and the other parts of the country where selection still operates. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for South Thanet (Dr. Ladyman) has a long-standing commitment to his argument, and a very great deal of knowledge, so I listened very carefully to what he, and the hon. Member for Chesterfield, had to say. Just a couple of weeks ago, I and my hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Jonathan Shaw), who is Minister for the South East, visited three secondary modern or non-grammar schools in Kent. We saw how they were using the Building Schools for the Future programme to deliver a culture of rising standards of aspiration and excellence.