Member

To understand where these Henry VIII powers lie, it is necessary to follow a rather obscure legislative trail, which makes them all the more objectionable. The trail begins with Clause 47 of the Bill, which inserts new Schedule 1A into the Academies Act, which mandates the application to academies of the national curriculum provisions in the Education Act 2002. In doing so, however, Clause 47 also applies to academies all the order and regulation-making powers enjoyed by the Secretary of State under the Education Act 2002. Those powers enable the Secretary of State to amend the 2002 Act and are therefore Henry VIII powers that will now apply also to academies. For those wanting the gory details, they are Sections 82, 84, 86, 87 and 91 of the 2002 Act, combined with Section 210 of that Act and Clause 63 of our Bill. It took me quite a while to work that out.