Education and Inspections Bill

Clearly, the hon. Gentleman has not been seeking the views of his local government colleagues. He only has to ask Alison King, the Tory chair of the Local Government Association’s children and young people’s board, what she thinks about the proposals for new community schools. She has been arguing that there should be a route for new community schools to be established because that is what is right. I have told the House that the Secretary of State’s judgment will be based on objective criteria. We will have that debate in Committee, where we will examine exactly what the best criteria should be.