I beg to move amendment No. 163, in clause 11, page 6, line 8, at end insert—

‘(e) an Academy,

(f) a city technology college,

(g) a city college for the technology of the arts, and

(h) special schools which are not community or foundation special schools but are for the time being approved by the Secretary of State under section 342 of the Education Act 1996 (c. 56) (approval of special schools).’.

The clause, as stated in the explanatory notes,

“places a new duty on governing bodies of certain institutions in England to promote attendance for the purpose of enabling young people to meet the duty to participate under clause 2.”

As the notes and the detail of the Bill itself confirm, that duty applies simply to community, foundation or voluntary schools, and special schools—as well as to pupil referral units and further education institutions. The LSC has asked for the same duty to be placed on private providers.

Amendment No. 163 is also inspired by the NUT; they are inspiring a lot of amendments among the Opposition parties at this moment. The amendment seeks to explore why a series of other educational institutions have been left out of this particular duty to promote good attendance. The amendment includes within that duty academies, city technology colleges, city technology colleges of the arts and special schools that are not community or foundation schools but are—for the time being—approved by the Secretary of State.

I have no problem with those educational institutions; indeed, I strongly support academies and some of the other educational institutions detailed here. I shall be working very hard to support Lord Adonis and others within the Government who want to defend some of those institutions against the attempt by the Prime Minister and perhaps even the Secretary of State to throttle them gradually. However, I believe that it is sensible for the freedoms that some of these institutions have to be enjoyed by as many schools as possible.

It is also sensible for the strategic oversight of all these educational organisations to operate in the same way. Even within the space of this week, we have seen how the Government seem to be implementing a strategic oversight of educational institutions which differentiate some of the maintained schools, which are already covered by clause 11, and schools in some other categories, such as the ones listed in amendment No. 163, which are institutions which traditionally have a greater degree of freedom.

Yesterday, I received a parliamentary answer regarding the duties that the Government will place on educational institutions in relation to compulsory cookery lessons. It was announced just a few weeks ago that all maintained schools will have to have compulsory cookery lessons, although we know that something like 85 per cent. of them already have these lessons. However, in the answer from the Minister, dated 5 February, we see that these cookery lessons will not be compulsory for academies. That seems to be a good example of the slightly bizarre approach that the Government are taking in allowing freedoms to be available to some educational institutions which are not available to others. This is causing a different strategic oversight of some educational institutions in comparison to others, for no good reason.

The amendment has been stimulated and, to be candid, written by the NUT, and we are pleased to lend our names to it. It lists a series of other educational institutions, which are taken from section 5 of the Education Act 2005. It includes all those educational institutions that are subject to Ofsted inspection. The logic of the amendment is that the duty to promote attendance should be consistent with the susceptibility to inspection.

I encourage the Minister to explain the logic of leaving those institutions outside the duty in clause 11. In what other ways will the duty will be catered for? Presumably, the Government do not intend that those educational establishments will not be obliged to pursue the duty to attend. Will they be doing so through funding agreements? Why should funding agreements be used for that purpose, rather than including them in the Bill? How will the existing academies with their own existing funding agreements be covered by the duty? Will there be any attempt to amend the funding agreements to ensure that the duties in the Bill are part of the duties of academies in the future?