Academies Bill [Lords]

My hon. Friend makes a self-evident and good point, and identifies some of the problems regarding the difference between what happened before and what will happen under the Bill's measures. There are a huge number of questions that the Minister needs to answer. On consultation, it would help if the Government and the Minister answered named day written questions, including a large number that are specifically relevant to this whole process and our discussions on consultation. I have 11 named-day questions for last Monday that have not yet been answered by the Department. Not all of them are relevant to this debate—[Interruption.] The Front Benchers are now debating who is responsible; I am afraid that it involves both Conservative and Liberal Democrat Ministers. Some of those questions are specific to today's debate on consultation, so for the Department to talk about consultation, procedure and correct processes when I still have not received the answers to questions for which the named day was last Monday—[Interruption.] The Minister says that I have had a holding response: on Monday 19 July, for 11 of my questions, I received the reply, ““I will reply as soon as possible,”” from him and his colleagues. I do not know whether anyone else has experienced this problem, but given that the measures are being pushed through Parliament at significant speed, all hon. Members need the answers to their named day questions so that information that might inform our discussions is available. With that, I shall simply say that we will support amendment 8 if the hon. Member for Southport pushes it to a vote, and I give notice that we would like to put amendment 78 to a vote.