Academies Bill [HL]

I thank the Minister for his reply and other Members of the Committee for their contributions. I am gratified that he is able to tell me that Amendment 52 is unnecessary, because the early years foundation stage will be taught. I will have to go away and look again at the detail of that. On Amendment 53, I am not quite clear what the Minister was saying. He said that some settings will be required to register and are already, and that some will not. I wonder whether he would be kind enough to write to me and clarify that, because I did not quite understand the reasons—perhaps he did not really go into them—why some do not need to register and will not. If they are to provide the education for that age group, I would have thought that they all had to be treated the same, because it really is important that the standard is kept up. That is what particularly concerns me. Concerning the Sure Start centres, my noble friend suggested that they should be looked at on a case-by-case basis. I would have thought that those current centres are so proud of their reputation—and jealous to guard it—that if they felt that in applying to become an academy they would lose that multi-agency, multi-professional ethos, they simply would not apply. I certainly hope that they would not, anyway. I will have to look rather carefully at my noble friend’s reply to see whether I need to probe him any further, but I would be grateful if he could write a more detailed response on my Amendment 53 and put a copy in the Library, because I really did not quite understand it. However, in the mean time I beg to withdraw the amendment. Amendment 52 withdrawn. Amendments 53 to 60 not moved. Amendment 60A Moved by