SCHOOLS ACADEMY PROGRAMME

That this House is dismayed that the Government's programme of developing privately-controlled school academies is diverting tax payers' funds into the hands of super-rich sponsors, most of whom have no record of successful education management, and will possibly have serious detrimental effects on neighbouring schools; calls on the Government to fund a `control group' of non-academy schools on a like-for-like basis with academies in order to establish evidence of value for money in terms of educational outcomes; and invites the Government to establish such a control group in the City of Wolverhampton in the event of the council having to establish an academy as a condition of securing much-needed funding under the Building Schools for the Future programme.