Children, Schools and Families Bill

It is no use the Secretary of State shaking his head, because that is what the Government are saying in the Bill. The home education proposals should be chucked out of the Bill, and I hope that very little of the Bill will ultimately make it on to the statute book. I hope that in another place there will be a coalition of views, perhaps across parties on many issues, that a large component of the legislation should not reach the statute book. The Minister for Schools and Learners said in his opening comments that we have had an interesting and thorough debate, but many of us would question his use of the word "thorough". After all, we managed to scrutinise only 26 or 27 clauses of this 50-clause Bill in Committee, so 23 clauses received no scrutiny at all. Some clauses have received only superficial scrutiny today, and four out of the five schedules to the Bill have not been debated at all. One lesson that Labour Governments ought to have learned in the past 13 years is that legislating in haste, sticking legislation on to the statute book at the last minute and making concessions that we can barely understand to Conservative Members with 30 seconds to go before the end of a one-hour debate on 10 clauses is not the way that we should be legislating. I sincerely hope, for reasons not only of ideology but of good practical politics and administration, that many of the measures in the Bill that are ill-thought-out and that have not been debated properly, including the controversial measures on family courts, will not go through. Finally, I am very sad about the change that the Government have made regarding sex and relationship education, which did not come out of any pressure in Committee. I do not believe that even the Conservative party, which has traditionally been cautious about such issues, proposed to amend the legislation in that way. Now, we have this amendment that we have not had the opportunity to debate today and that cuts directly across the commitment in the Bill to promote equality and diversity.