My Lords, Amendment 33D stands in my name and I spoke to it in our first debate this afternoon. When I spoke to it, I said that I would listen to what the Minister and other noble Lords had to say, but I reserved the right to move it and test the opinion of the House when it came up in order. With your Lordships’ agreement, I would like to do that. Never mind all the arguments in favour of the amendment to do with the desirability of a degree of central oversight of a wholly new system being introduced and operated by local authorities, which those who spoke in favour of it maintained is not unduly prescriptive. Irrespective of all that, the main reason why I want to press the amendment to a Division is that I think there has been a considerable misapprehension about the thrust of the amendment on the part of those who expressed reservations about it.
A number of noble Lords said that they were unhappy about an amendment which contained the idea of minimum standards and sought to impose them on local authorities as that would give rise to a tick-box culture, with local authorities merely operating to a bare minimum standard. When I spoke to the amendment I indicated that I had taken this very point when it was made in Grand Committee—that we should not confuse a framework of standards with minimum standards, because if we talked in terms of minimum standards that would lead to this very race to the bottom, which nobody wants to see. I made it clear when I spoke this afternoon that I have very much taken that point.
This amendment does not speak of minimum standards. It merely speaks of the Secretary of State making regulations to provide a framework of standards and quality for local authorities to observe in formulating their local offers. For that reason, I would like to test the opinion of the House.