---

Education and Inspections Bill

My Lords, I apologise to the Minister. I know that he wants to get on, but I have a couple of—I promise—brief points to make. I commend what my noble friend Lady Sharp said, not least to those who voted in large numbers for the amendment that concerned the whole issue of community cohesion. That is because they are expecting the inspectors to have a remarkable impact. Some of us hope that that will be so, some of us are rather more sceptical. Certainly, an independent review two or three years down the road would ensure that we would discover how far the commitment to community cohesion existed in fact—in the way in which, for example, schools conducted themselves on admissions. If we believe that, then there is nothing to worry about with an independent review. If we are a little uncertain, then an independent review will enable us so to arrange and change the legislation to ensure that what the noble Baroness, Lady Buscombe, and other people have so eloquently demanded is actually going to happen. My first point is that those who are relying heavily on some of the amendments being made ought, in order for the Bill to carry the weight that they are giving it, strongly to support an independentreview, which carries no political baggage. It is a straightforward request that we look again at what we have just done. Secondly, as somebody who, like the noble Lord, has been a Minister, I am very struck by how little feedback there ever is from legislation. We pass often sweeping and very thorough legislation—I am referring not just to this Government but to any Government—but we then almost never follow up to see what has happened and how far that legislation has been justified. That is one of the reasons why we keep putting new Bills in—to replace the holes in the previous Acts. Anybody who believes, as I am sure the Minister does, in research, study and careful looking into the facts of what has happened ought to support an independent review, because we have very complicated admissions arrangements in the Bill. We also have transparent ones, but ones that are in some ways likely to conflict to some extent with each other. I come to perhaps my most important point. It is well known in this House that some of the crucial changes that the Government have made to the Bill, under considerable pressure from Back-Benchers in their own party as well as in other parties, were specifically to the admissions arrangements. Quite a lot of concessions were made in that regard. It is therefore important that we know how far those concessions are going to be carried out. In case anyone doubts that this could happen, I shall quote briefly, but also very relevantly to the amendment that we have just discussed, with regard to the issue of good and excellent local authorities. At Second Reading in another place, the then Minister, Ruth Kelly, said: "““I have given commitments to Members that any local authority with a good track record that proposes a new community school should be able to have that proposal considered””.—[Official Report, Commons, 15/3/06; col. 1472.]" That was not brought forward in our previous debate but it was a specific promise by the Minister that does not appear to have been fully carried out. For all these reasons, I strongly suggest that we should give weight to an independent review to ensure that the various promises, changes and arrangements that have been made should actually stand the tests of fact, of research and of study. I strongly support my noble friend in moving the amendment.