Academies Bill [Lords]

It is a very good job that the Minister has persuaded me that statutory instruments of any sort—negative or affirmative—are unnecessary, otherwise he would not be able to announce academy orders in September. I intend to ask leave to withdraw the amendment, but I return to a point I made earlier. I provoked the Minister at the beginning of this debate, but in both this debate and the debate on the previous group of amendments, I note that he has not put any figure at all on the number of schools that he expects to become academies. That now seems to have gone down to almost nought, because the aspiration now is to introduce large numbers of academy orders. We will wait and see what transpires in September, but interestingly, the Government have today announced a huge retreat on their expectations for the Bill. They have gone from saying, ““Hundreds of academies are expected to open,”” to saying, ““Maybe a few will open on the basis of the ones that the previous Government approved earlier in the year.”” However, the Minister's and the Government's aspiration as announced today is to have significant numbers of academy orders, with consultation to follow. We will see where we are in September, but with those comments, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. Clause 3 ordered to stand part of the Bill.