Education and Inspections Bill

I have given way once, so I will not. Sir Jeremy Beecham, leader of the Local Government Association labour group, said of the White Paper:"““The proposals around admissions, the planning of new schools and the expansion of popular schools give insufficient leverage to councils to maximise fairness or the efficient use of resources””." Small wonder that there was such a hostile reaction to the publication of the original White Paper. In fact, 95 Labour MPs eventually backed our alternative White Paper, which was fairly entitled ““Shaping the Education Bill—Reaching for Consensus””. It challenged the absence of a mandatory code; the ban on local authorities promoting new community schools; and any attempts to force trusts on communities by financial inducement or ministerial diktat. The Government have listened, and conceded those substantive points with assurances of more movement and clarification in Committee. All seven of us who were proud to co-author the alternative White Paper have come to the conclusion that it is worth consolidating the gains that have been made. We have spent three months of our lives on the issue, and none of us wants to throw away what has been achieved or to disengage from the process. Colleagues who are thinking of voting down the Bill on Second Reading should realise that disengaging from the process at this point is sub-contracting education policy from the Labour party and the Labour Government to the Opposition. That is not something that any of us came to Parliament to do. My message to colleagues still concerned about aspects of the Bill is to stick with it: continue to engage with the process by supporting the Government on Second Reading but reassess the situation when the Bill returns to the House on Report. That is what parliamentary democracy is supposed to be about. We can all make grand gestures on Second Reading but, quite frankly, some of the issues have become conflated. I have a view about how long our Prime Minister should carry on, but I do not think it should be confused with the issue of how we vote on the future of our kids’ education.