Education and Adoption Bill

We had some banter on the floor of the House on the question of democracy. The democracy in this is that it was clearly in our manifesto and in the Queen’s Speech, when a school reaches a certain point it is not in the interests of the pupils in that school. I said in my opening remarks that we must put children first. The democracy is that we have been elected to enact this legislation—but, of course, as we have discussed, coasting will take place over a long period of time. It is not a sudden event. Schools commissioners will give coasting schools time to uncoast, if that is a word. There will be plenty of time for parents to be fully aware and informed of what is going on. I do not think that it is quite the dramatic event that it might sometimes be portrayed as.