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Education Bill

My Lords, I support what my noble friend said. Clause 55(3)(b) states that one of the people who is allowed to carry out the consultation, apart from a school's governing body referred to in Clause 55(3)(a), is the person with whom the Secretary of State proposes to enter into academy arrangements. That does not seem terrible neutral to me. Guess what the result will be. To the question, ““Do we want a new academy?””, I think the answer will be, ““Yes, we do””. It seems inconceivable that any consultation carried out by the body that is straining at the leash to open this academy is going to come up with the answer, ““No, we don’t want it””. So it is not very neutral.