Education and Inspections Bill
1:15 pm
Nick Gibb (Shadow Minister (Schools), Education; Bognor Regis and Littlehampton, Conservative)
I hope that the hon. Gentleman paid as much attention to my remarks as I am paying attention to his. The purpose of the amendments was not to say that local authorities are incapable of providing a decent education; if that was our view, we would not support the Bill at all, because as the Minister said, it gives new powers to local authorities. We are comfortable with that. The amendment is all about providing diversity, because at the moment the overwhelming majority of schools are community schools. The hon. Gentleman has himself said that the injection of diversity will help to drive up standards. If we continue to produce more community schools, we will decrease diversity, because community schools are the overwhelming majority of schools in this country.