Children, Schools and Families Bill

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The antipathy that the Government have created between local authorities and home educators has worsened as a consequence of these proposals. Chloe Watson from my constituency, who chairs the Home Educated Youth Council, has said that she has noted around the country a breakdown in the relationship between local authorities and home educators since the Badman report was published. We support some of the measures in this Bill, such as clauses 7 and 8, which give new rights to the parents of children with special educational needs. We support the new powers to intervene when youth offending teams fail, and we support the provisions to enable school governing bodies to establish academies. We also supported clause 42 in the original Bill, which gave automatic charitable status to academies. In the words of the Secretary of State on Second Reading:""by making the process of establishing an academy easier, by reducing bureaucracy so that, like colleges, universities and voluntary aided schools, all academies are guaranteed charitable status...this legislation represents a sensible piece of deregulation and a reduction in bureaucracy."—[Official Report, 11 January 2010; Vol. 503, c. 439.]" Now, alas, the Government—caving in to the anti-academy views in their party—have withdrawn the clause, so we will now have more regulation and an increase in bureaucracy. This is not a good Bill. It is hugely bureaucratic, hugely expensive and will do little to raise the standard of education in this country. It is an unpopular Bill with all those whom it affects—from the teacher unions to the General Teaching Council to the tens of thousands of parents who choose to educate their children at home. I urge the House, therefore, to put the Bill its misery and vote against it on Third Reading.