Lord Harris: Don’t let Labour wreck my academies
PHILIP HARRIS was never likely to be a fan of Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour manifesto. After all, the peer and lifelong Conservative Party donor has been busy backing Tory candidates in marginal seats in what he hopes might tilt the balance towards a victory for Boris Johnson on December 12.
But even he didn’t expect to be so perturbed by Corbyn’s plans that he would feel forced to wade into the campaign’s mud-slinging with outspoken comments of his own.
The pledge that has hit a nerve was buried in the Labour manifesto: if elected, Labour would take academy schools ‘back under control of the people who know them best – parents, teachers and local communities’.
In the stroke of a pen, Labour threatened to wreck more than two decades of work Lord Harris had put in to building up a fleet of Harris Academy schools in some of London’s poorest boroughs.
Academies are privately run schools which get their funding from the Government, but are run by a trust. That means they have more control over the curriculum, term times and can set their own pay for staff. They were originally created to help improve failing schools. But they are regarded by some as a slippery slope towards privatisation of the education system and they have delivered mixed performances.
‘Taking academies and free schools back is the most disappointing thing of all,’ said Lord Harris, 77.
His Harris Academies now teach 35,000 pupils largely in deprived London boroughs. ‘They are getting a much better education than before and out of the blue they could take them back off us and hand them to local authorities,’ Lord Harris said.
‘But the only reason we got them in the first place was because they were failing. That’s a very bad thing. I believe every child deserves a very good education – not only at our school but at all schools.’
He acknowledges the academies system is not without criticism. Many groups, including those run by Harris Academies, are run by chiefs on executive-style salaries and not all perform as well as others.
‘There is some disappointment in the academies, but the overall record is very good,’ says Harris, who was knighted in 1985 by Margaret Thatcher and then became Lord Harris of Peckham in 1996 under John Major.
‘Ninety per cent of our schools are outstanding and they were all failing or [underperforming] free schools [set up from scratch by groups such as parents or charities] when we took them. We’ve now got six world-class schools and our schools on average have double the number going to a Russell University [a group of 18 universities including Oxford, Cambridge, Bristol and Leeds].’
Lord Harris made his name in business by setting up Carpetright in 1998. He left in 2014. The following year he launched a rival chain Tapi Carpets, which he advises and which is run by his son Martin.
He famously sold his luxury pad near Cap d’Antibes, said to have one of the best sea views in the world, back in 2011 to raise cash for his schools and has pumped millions of his own fortune in since.
He said: ‘ I’m prepared to put more money into them and make them work and make sure the children – and remember that most of our children are from poor backgrounds – get a great education.’
Labour said in its manifesto that the lack of performance at schools isn’t necessarily linked to bad management. It said the Conservatives ‘have starved our education system of funding’ and have been ‘cutting budgets of schools, disproportionately in deprived areas’.
Meanwhile, the Harris Federation chief executive Sir Dan Moynihan, who runs almost 50 schools, has found himself the target of criticisms over his £550,000 annual pay, making him the highest paid academy boss in the country. Earlier this month, Moynihan appeared to agree with Education Secretary Gavin Williamson’s insistence that trust bosses should earn no more than the Prime Minister’s £150,000 a year. But Moynihan suggested this was for those running one or two schools, not dozens, which requires a different skill set.
Plenty of analysis has been carried out on whether academies generally outperform state schools. But studies on this highly contentious area have sometimes offered up mixed results.
Lord Harris cites examples such as a ‘really terrible’ North London school taken under the Harris umbrella two years ago, which has been revitalised. Harris cites hard data to prove his schools are ‘much more efficient’ but adds: ‘I’m not against local authorities.
‘We want to get up to 50,000 children in London and we want to make sure they get a good education. You’re changing lives of children. You’re motivating them and they’re getting a better education.’
Lord Harris predicts a close-run Election where he is funding the Tory party’s efforts ‘direct to MPs that are fighting close seats’.
‘I think there will be a Tory majority but I’m worried it’s not going to be enough. I’m worried it’s going to be a hung Parliament. That would be disappointing for the country,’ says Harris, who was deputy chairman of the Conservative Party Board of Treasurers in the 90s.
‘What I’d love to see is a Conservative Government with, say, a 30 majority and then we can see how good we are,’ says Harris.
‘I’m not saying the Conservatives have done everything right in the last ten years. But, if Boris does everything he says he’s going to do, I think it’s the right way to go.’