Children, Schools and Families Bill

I sometimes wonder whether it is worth coming forward with concessions; if those are the reactions that I get for doing so, I will just do full-blown opposition and get on with it. However, I welcome the limited welcome given to these concessions, and just wish to make a couple of points before allowing us to move on. They are important concessions and changes, and they directly relate to some of the problems that the hon. Members for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr. Gibb) and for Yeovil (Mr. Laws) set out. We have tried to respond to those so that the document becomes more workable and we do not encounter some of the problems that would have arisen had we not amended the Bill. The document is being consulted on for 12 weeks—I do not recall exactly how far through that process we are, but it is about seven or eight weeks—and people are responding to that consultation exercise. When my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and I go to meetings, people talk to us about the guarantees and they do not see them as being fit for the waste paper bin. People are engaging with us about the real effort that we have made to lay out, for the first time, what the state's offer should be to parents and to pupils in terms of state education. This was not a "back of a fag packet" effort; serious discussions took place over a considerable time so that we could put forward a document setting out what a parent and a pupil can expect in terms of education. Let us go into fantasy land for a moment: if, after an election, we had a Conservative Government or a Liberal Government—[Interruption.] It has come to something when I am barracked by my own side as well. I would have a wager with the hon. Members for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton and for Yeovil that if and when this becomes law, they will not abolish it.