Academies Bill [Lords]

I begin by thanking the Minister for his usual courtesy and kindness in wishing my daughter Hattie a very happy birthday. The whole Committee is welcome to join us for ““Toy Story 3”” on Sunday, if it so wishes. The Minister has reassured me to some extent on clauses 9 and 10 and on the model funding agreement. That goes some way to addressing my concerns and I also thank him for clarifying some points about the FE sector. However, he has not gone far enough. As I said, there are fundamental weaknesses at the heart of the Bill, as seen in this group of amendments. Those weaknesses are on capacity and on consultation. With great respect to the Minister, he has not reassured me on those matters. More to the point, some comments by the hon. Members for North Cornwall (Dan Rogerson) and for Hexham (Guy Opperman), and the excellent comments by the Chair of the Select Committee, showed that there is concern about the gap in the appropriate level of consultation. I understand that the Minister hopes to ponder on that issue, but I would suggest that he table a Government amendment on Report, which we could consider. I would be more than happy to discuss any such amendment with him. I suspect, however, that he will not do that. I repeat that there are fundamental weaknesses on capacity, which amendment 20 would address, and on consultation, which amendment 33 would address. I would therefore like to test the opinion of the Committee on those amendments.