---

Education Bill

My Lords, I support the amendment proposed by the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie of Brompton. Governments, who are made up of democratically elected MPs, and most Ministers—although not those in your Lordships' House, of course—sometimes forget that local authorities are democratically elected as well. I wonder what the point is of having a consultation on the opening of an academy if the local authority is fettered in any way in responding to that consultation—if local parents say that they would prefer to have a local authority school, thank you very much. Anything that fetters the opportunity of the local authority to respond to its own local people is not a good idea, and I support what the noble Baroness has just said.