Education and Inspections Bill

I thank the noble Lord for his suggestion. I do not have a copy of the 1996 Act to hand and so cannot look at it, but we will consider it and perhaps come back on Reportwith something of that ilk. I thank him for his interventions. I suspect that we shall go on throughout this Bill disagreeing with each other, but that is fine. I thank the Minister for his response and take on board his comments on further education colleges. I recognise that the Act applies to local education authorities, which I mentioned when I introduced the amendment. I said that I realised they were not directly under the responsibility of local education authorities, and implicitly, therefore, I recognised that technically the amendment was defective. However, I thought it was worth—indeed, it has been worth—throwing it in for discussion. I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, sees us as trying to impose a grey world. We are not against choice, but we believe that under the current system much parental choice is a total chimera and we do not think that that will change. The Government are offering the country a system similar to that existing in London. Parents have the whole of the Greater London area to choose from, which has created chaos. Around 55 per cent of parents and children get their first choice of school in Greater London, whereas outside Greater London it is closer to 90-95 per cent. I take on board the Minister’s statistics, and was surprised that as many as 65 per cent of households have five or more secondary schools within a three-mile radius. I recognise that in a town such as Guildford, where I live, there are five secondary schools, and there is that choice. In some senses, my vision of the community working together is based on somewhere like Guildford, where, by and large, there is a lot of collaboration and co-operation, but where issues arise over parental choice. My party is concerned about curriculum choice and the range of such choice available to pupils. That is a key issue. I shall read carefully what various people have contributed to this debate, but for the moment I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. [Amendments Nos. 14 and 15 not moved.]