Education Bill

Before the Minister speaks, perhaps I may ask whether he will address a particular point in his summing up. The point raised by my noble friend is very important in the light of the education system—or lack of an education system, if I may put it like that—that will arise if all the Government’s changes go through. The very important question is: who will be responsible for looking after the very small groups of children who are, by definition, not very visible because they are small in number but are none the less, for all kinds of reasons that noble Lords have identified, very disadvantaged when it comes to taking up opportunities for education? Given that local authorities will not have any locus in local areas if the Government’s objective of the majority of schools being academies and free schools comes to fruition, I should be grateful if, in responding, the Minister could say where responsibility will lie for looking at the achievement, or lack of it, of these small groups of children, working with schools in some way but without the power and leverage to do so. Who will ensure that schools do better by these very small groups of children? In the new world that the Government will take us into where academies are going to be everywhere and will not be focused on disadvantaged children, I cannot see where that responsibility will lie and where the leverage with individual schools to do better by these children will come from.