Thank you for taking the time to contact me regarding the Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill.
Every child deserves the opportunity to lead a safe and fulfilling life, and I welcome the child protection measures in this legislation that have clear merit.
However, the proposed reforms to education in this bill are a reversal of many of the reforms that have made the English education system one of the best in the world. The key part of the bill is an attack on school standards by undermining the academies that have led the way on school improvement for decades.
Whilst the Government has been forced to amend their bill to prevent an effective pay cut for 20,000 academy teachers, it will set a floor on pay that requires all academies to follow minimum pay bands set out in the school teachers' pay and conditions document. Secondly, it will require academies to have due regard to the rest of the terms and conditions in the school teacher's pay and conditions document.
They will also no longer be able to recruit teachers without qualified teacher status from non-traditional backgrounds, such as the armed forces or professional sports, and will be forced to follow the same national curriculum as other schools, depriving academies of the freedom to attract the most talented staff from all walks of life and make changes to turn around failing schools. If implemented, these measures will lead to the end of an era for standards-focussed school reform and risk the progress that has been made by three decades of cross-party consensus on academies, from Blair to Cameron and beyond.
There is no other major public service in the UK that has improved as much as English schools have improved over the last 14 years. The Government now wants to undo that progress and jeopardise the education of our children for their own ideological reasons. It is educational vandalism and my party colleagues and I will fight against it in Parliament.
Thank you again for taking the time to contact me.
