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Children, Schools and Families Bill

We did! It was a great celebration. On this basis, we were able to provide guarantees for pupils and parents into the future. These would have been extremely important guarantees, such as that for one-to-one tuition for children falling behind in English and maths; they would have been funded through our commitment to protect front-line spending. We believe that such tailored support should no longer be the preserve of the wealthy and privileged but be a core component of the curriculum. Alongside them, we intended to strengthen home-school agreements so that head teachers and teachers generally had the powers that they needed to ensure good discipline in schools, and that parents took responsibility for their children. As behaviour expert Sir Alan Steer reported recently, it is important that schools have the confidence of knowing that they operate within a legal system that supports their endeavours and that both parents and schools know that the use of a parenting order is a possibility. However, these important reforms are now being withdrawn. Where we would offer guarantees, others would not; where we would give heads in our schools the powers that they want, the party opposite would not. There are many other important clauses coming predominantly from our schools White Paper, published in June last year, which sought seek to drive further sustained improvement in schools and youth offending teams. They would have provided parents with the information that they need to ensure that communities are safe and secure. I see no reason why these clauses have been opposed, but they have, and as is the custom we are working together in the agreement. We want schools to do the best for our children, and we all know that that means good teaching. On this basis, we introduced our proposals to introduce a licensing scheme for teachers. Our intention was to accompany that with a contractual entitlement to continuing professional development. We would be following what other professions do, such as doctors and lawyers, but it seems that there is no commitment to do that on all sides of the House. It is deeply regrettable, but it is something that I believe that we need to do at this point. With great regret, we oppose this stand part.