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Education and Skills Bill

It is up to the hon. Lady to decide. As I was arguing, the more people who secure high level qualifications, the more room there is for collaboration intellectually, the stronger the networks that generate innovation, and the more opportunities that are open to every individual. Therefore, generating higher participation in education and making opportunity more equal threaten no one and enrich our whole society. In that respect, and in so far as this Bill is intended to express a national aspiration to increase participation, that is a noble aim. That brings me to my second test: does the Bill do violence to any valuable principle? That takes us to the heart of the whole question of compulsion. At the weekend, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, the current Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr. Clegg), made a very good speech—