Education Bill

My Lords, my noble friend will not be surprised that I am immensely disappointed by his response. That will be shared by the many people who have been in contact with me since I raised this matter at Second Reading. I am grateful for the support that was given by the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, and the noble Earl, Lord Listowel. I say to him, regarding the figures that I gave in my speech, that you have only to calculate on the amount of money that is made available to a setting what kind of pay is possible under that if—as the noble Baroness, Lady Hughes, and my noble friend sustain—the total money available should be limited to the free entitlement only. The only crumb of comfort is the suggestion that the fiction that goes on around the edge—that people can go on charging outside the so-called free entitlement —should go on and we should go on nodding and winking at that. That is very disappointing. We heard a lot of talk about certainty. There is no certainty in this. The free entitlement is not fully resourced—it never has been—and public policy should not be based on something that is essentially not true. As someone who loyally went through the Lobbies to support top-up fees in universities and would do so again, there is a certain irony in being told that top-up fees in a non-maintained sector like nursery schools would bring the United Kingdom to its knees. I will reflect on what has been said. I cannot promise my noble friend that I will not return to this matter on Report, but in the interim I am grateful to him for elements of his response and to other noble Lords who spoke. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment 3 withdrawn. Amendments 4 to 9 not moved. Clause 1 agreed.