Labour is hoping to work with backbench Conservative MPs to block government plans to force all state schools to become academies by 2022.



The shadow education secretary, Lucy Powell, said she is seeking to achieve a cross-party alliance against the plans announced by George Osborne last month.

Powell told the Association of Teachers and Lecturers’ annual conference in Liverpool on Monday: “I think my approach to these issues in parliament is going to be about making and winning the argument rather than a sort of ‘yah-boo’ traditional political discourse, because I don’t think that is going to enable us to develop that broader alliance.

“I have been trying to make very sensible, rational arguments about why I feel forced academisation is wrong, and I think they are the same arguments I hear echoed by Conservatives in local government and in parliament”, Powell said after telling teachers she expected ministers to face “a really big hurdle” over their plans.

Her remarks follow comments by Graham Brady, chairman of the 1922 committee, made up of Conservative backbenchers, reported in the Observer on Sunday. In a letter to a constituent, Brady expressed concerns about accountability and parental involvement if all schools became “part of huge new chains” and warned that “instead of more freedom for schools, we might see new and distant bureaucracies”.

Labour has already predicted the move could cost well over £1bn, based on Department for Education figures for the cost of converting the nearly 4,900 schools that have already become academies since 2010.

Powell admitted there had been few opportunities to canvas parliamentary opinion. “But it is becoming increasingly clear to me over the last two or three weeks how few people there are out there supporting these proposals and how many people there are saying the government needs to rethink, or who are outright opposed.”

The schools minister, Nick Gibb, earlier said the £1bn-plus funding estimate made by Labour was “completely untrue”. He also insisted there was both more autonomy and scrutiny of schools that were academies.

Mary Bousted, general secretary of the teachers’ union the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, later described as “horrifying” results from its survey of more than 400 of its members, including primary school teachers, which suggested nearly half of them knew of pupils who had self-harmed and about a fifth were aware of children who had attempted suicide.

Of the 81 education staff who said they knew of an attempted suicide, 18 worked in primary schools. About nine in 10 of those polled said testing and exams contributed to children’s stress while pressure from schools and teachers to do well, fragmented home lives and pressure to feel popular on social networking sites were among other significant factors.

Bousted said teachers were increasingly trying to fill gaps left by cuts in mental health service for children and young people. “The government bears responsibility for much of this stress which appears to stem from a test-focused, overcrowded curriculum.”

The Department for Education said it was putting £1.5m into peer support schemes to help children in schools as well as trialling moves with NHS England to establish single points of contact to make support more joined-up and available when needed.

“Tests are a key part of ensuring young people master the skills they need to reach their potential and succeed in life”, it said. “But we have taken real steps to ensure they are not on a constant treadmill of revision and testing, including scrapping January modules, decoupling AS levels and removing resits from league tables.”