Education and Inspections Bill

Will the noble Lord accept that there was an unusually long gap between Second Reading and the introduction of Committee on this Bill, and that large tranches of the Bill re-enact other legislation, so it does not need to be as large as it is? Will he also accept that the Government have already had considerable co-operation from these Benches? We have already agreed to these strange and enormous un-homogenous groupings and to sit late on the first two days of Committee. We also agreed to postpone a section of the Bill to be treated as Committee on Report, but I understand that the Official Opposition would not agree to that. To ask us to sit to midnight is asking us to go one step too far. I do not want to be obstructive to the House getting the business through; I want us to scrutinise the Bill properly. In the interests of doing that, I am afraid that I will regretfully have to accept what the noble Lord the government Chief Whip has proposed.