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Education and Inspections Bill

Because the ballots would not be used for that. They would be used by people such as the right hon. Gentleman, who will set out to oppose any initiatives, even those of parents, which clause 3 allows. He will be out there, campaigning against those parents. We are worried about some of the comments that the Secretary of State made about ballots. In his ““Dear Colleague”” letter, which someone helpfully sent me, he stated:"““We have also ensured that when a school decides to join a Trust it has to consult its parents, through a ballot if necessary””." The Minister for Schools repeated that on the ““Today”” programme this morning. Nothing in the Bill provides for that, the draft guidance contains nothing about it and there is no wording to that effect in the draft regulations. I was reassured by the Secretary of State’s comments, in response to my intervention, that he will not include that wording in the guidance, and that he will not refer to an indicative ballot in the regulations. I was also reassured that it is not the Government’s intention that a consultation process would be regarded as inadequate simply on the ground that an indicative ballot of parents had not taken place, thus presenting grounds for a local authority to refer the proposal to a schools adjudicator. If it had been the Government’s intention to make reference to an indicative ballot in either the guidance or the regulations, it would have been very damaging to the successful implementation of the proposals.