Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill

I would like to start where the Secretary of State began, by paying tribute to Lord Dearing and the work that he did, during a long period in education, on curriculum reform, higher education and, more recently, modern languages. I would also like to thank the Minister and his team for meeting me and my hon. Friends the Members for Bristol, West (Stephen Williams) and for Mid-Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke) to discuss the Bill and its later stages. When we had our meeting, however, the Minister did not mention that he was already in the process of amending his own Bill. We have heard from the Secretary of State today that a number of amendments are already in the offing. I think that at least one of them might emanate from Barnardo's, although I hope that the Minister will correct me if I have got that wrong. It would be useful to know, either now or at some stage before the debate concludes, how many amendments there are already, particularly on special needs, and when members of the Committee and Members of the House can expect to be made aware of them, so that we can avoid pursuing issues that the Government may already have addressed. Perhaps the Minister could deal with that question later in these proceedings. I should also like to thank all those outside this place, such as Barnardo's and others, who are already busy scrutinising the Bill and proposing a series of amendments and adjustments to it. In my view, they do not have a particularly enviable job. This is a very long Bill, with 265 clauses, and it is not a particularly exciting Bill. If it is going to be the final education Bill of this period in office for Labour, as I suspect it will be, it will mark Labour's leaving with a whimper rather than a bang. With the exception of the proposals on apprenticeships, it seems to be a rag-bag of different proposals with no common theme other than, in many cases, that of centralising power and increasing the level of bureaucracy. The Bill is particularly deficient in respect of tackling some of the continuing, entrenched disadvantages and inequalities in the education system that are manifested in the enormous gap between the performance of those from deprived neighbourhoods and those from more affluent areas. It is still the case, for example, that about 85 per cent. of white boys from poor families fail to reach the Government's benchmark of five good GCSEs. We also know that a majority of schools in the poorest areas fail to get more than 30 per cent. of their pupils to reach the five good GCSEs target. I had hoped that the Government would provide a greater sense of momentum and vision through the Bill. I had hoped that they would accept the proposals for a pupil premium developed by the Liberals and others to target disadvantage and that they would raise funding levels and effectiveness to reach the people who have been and continue to be left behind. I wanted to see those proposals in the Bill.