Academies Bill [Lords]

I will come to that, but I assure the hon. Gentleman that the amendments are not contradictory—they are trying to address a similar problem and to ensure that we can resolve this issue. Amendment 76 would ensure that all existing and contingent liabilities, including any liabilities that have been incurred on behalf of the school by the local authority, should also be considered. In this context, I take the contingent liability to mean a possible obligation that arises from past events and whose existence will be confirmed only by the occurrence of one or more uncertain future events not wholly within the existing school's control. An example could be outstanding legal cases. We discussed in Committee last night the possibility of legal challenge from staff who might not have had the opportunity or the time to consider properly the TUPE arrangements of moving from a maintained school to an academy—a point that has been well articulated by my hon. Friend the Member for Blaydon (Mr Anderson). That might be considered a possible contingent liability. Another example, which has been discussed this afternoon, could be any liabilities arising under current private finance initiative arrangements. We had an interesting debate about amendment 70, with particular regard to PFI. One of the risks is that a local authority could have a potential 25-year period of liabilities arising from PFI, and converting a maintained school to an academy means that the academy has no way of being liable for that payment over that quarter of a century. What reassurance can the Minister give in that regard?