David Cameron has hinted at concessions on his plan to force all schools to become academies, saying they will still be able to work with councils.
He said further plans would be brought forward at the Queen’s speech next month, and suggested schools who wanted the support of local authorities would be able to receive it.
His comments suggest the government may be preparing a compromise that would let local authorities be involved in running academies, amid a threatened rebellion.
Pressed by Jeremy Corbyn about the issue at prime minister’s questions, he said: “There are lots of ways that schools can become academies. They can convert and become academies, they can be sponsored by an outside organisation, they can work with other schools in the area, they can look at working with the local authority.
“Those schools that want to go on using local authority services are free to do so. I’m very clear – academies are great, academies for all is a good policy.”
Cameron has previously said he wants local authorities running schools to become “a thing of the past” but the policy has caused controversy among Tory backbenchers and councils.
Corbyn said the row over academies was part of a pattern of the Conservatives imposing unpopular policies from Whitehall that are opposed by the professions they affect.
“The pattern is quite simply this – you have a health secretary that’s imposing a contract on junior doctors, against the wishes of patients and the public and the rest of the medical profession,” he said.
“You have an education secretary imposing yet another Tory top-down reorganisation that nobody wants. When will your government show some respect and listen to the public, parents and patients, and indeed professionals, who have given their lives to public service in education and health, and change your ways?
“Listen to them and trust other people to run services rather than imposing things from above.”
After PMQs, a senior Downing Street source stressed that the full academisation process would not be completed for another six years.
This could include local authorities offering services to academy schools in the same way that multi-academy trusts do.
“The schools will be academies and will be able to choose who they use to bring in additional services,” said the source. “We are not being prescriptive. The schools will be in charge. The headteachers and teachers will be in charge. That’s the fundamental principle.”
Nicky Morgan, the education secretary, would not be drawn on Monday about reports that discussions were under way about possible concessions aimed at appeasing Tory rebels, including allowing the best-performing local authorities to run their own multi-academy trusts.
Responding to education questions in the House of Commons, she did not appear to budge from the government’s stated aim that all schools should be academies by 2022. She told MPs: “I’m not going to leave the job half done. I’m going to finish this job.”
