Clause 2 - Power to suspend statutory requirements etc.
[Part I]Education Bill
5:30 pm
Mr Graham Brady (Altrincham and Sale West, Conservative)
I am slightly concerned at the number of times I have agreed with the hon. Gentleman today, but he makes an important point. If Ministers were really committed to the flexibility that many members of the Committee would like, they would be following a different route. Even given the constraints of the Bill and the powers that Ministers are giving themselves, we have had no real indication so far of how they want to use them. Perhaps that makes it all the more remarkable that I am prepared to trust Ministers as far as I said I would.
There is no consistency, rationale or common sense in the approach that Ministers take in the Bill. It is contradictory and bureaucratic. Ministers propose to return to the House in due course with further primary legislation. They may say that a proposal has been demonstrably working for the last six years, but although they had power and primary legislation before, they did not have the power to keep it going. I
hope that, on reflection, the Minister will agree that it would be sensible to remove the restrictions. If he does not, I shall seek to divide the Committee.