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Academies Bill [HL]

My Lords, I am unhappy about these amendments on several counts. First, they seem to impose, again, external restrictions on academies, whereas the whole object of the Bill is to take away all the impositions that have been put on them. Secondly, Amendment 72 would give the local authority an overriding say in the exclusion of pupils. Surely, if a school is to be free and able to manage its own affairs, it should not have to operate in partnership with a local authority that no longer has any statutory or financial authority over it. I have discussed these amendments with the principal of one academy, who assures me that academies are happy to operate independently and in informal collaboration with other schools in their area, though not necessarily within the same local authority, particularly over aspects of their work which might well affect those other schools. For example, if a pupil is excluded from an academy, it might well be that another school would be the better and right place for that pupil to go. In that case there is nothing to stop Fred, the principal of one academy, calling Mary, the principal of a maintained school, and saying, "Look, we’ve got a lad here who isn’t fitting into the academy well and is behaving very badly. We’re intending to exclude him; would you be willing to take him on?", and so on. Trusting professionals in the service to do sensible things and work together on a collegiate and happy basis is far more likely to work than all this imposition of things from outside and putting them in legislation. I hope that the noble Baroness will reflect on the lack of trust which this kind of amendment suggests.