My Lords, I say very briefly that amid the myriad arguments on this group and, indeed, throughout the Bill, there is, if it does not sound too pompous, a philosophical difference, to put it mildly, about academies and their role. I have to say I particularly like my noble friend Lord Hunt’s Amendment 1, with its
“strategic policy on parental and community engagement”,
and I very much like the proposed new clause in Amendment 5 from my noble friends on the Front Bench, particularly proposed new subsection (2)(b)(iii) and (iv), which refers to
“the duty to cooperate with the local authority in school admissions; the duty to cooperate with the local authority in school place planning”.
That seems to be where the divide is: whether you see these academies as part of the community and to a degree answerable to the community, with community involvement, or as islands, looking after their own interests and without any requirement to be part of the whole. We will no doubt have that debate in whatever time is allowed when the Bill comes back to us from the Commons—if it gets that far.