David Simmonds

The debate on this Bill has been comprehensive. I rise to support a number of amendments to this Bill that hon. Friends have tabled, but I open on a point that has already been much debated, not only yesterday but during the Bill’s earlier stages. The Minister has said from the Dispatch Box that she regards the safety of children as being the Government’s highest priority, but the Government’s absolute refusal to countenance the amendments and proposals on equal protection demonstrates a lack of will to follow most other countries in implementing laws that provide that level of protection to children. That remains enormously disappointing, and will be an outstanding issue, in terms of child protection, for the foreseeable future. The measures before the House are primarily concerned with schools. I would like to back up a number of colleagues who have set out the long-standing cross-party nature of the measures that underpin the success of the education system in England. I was a governor at one of the first schools to ever become an academy. It was sponsored by a significant Labour party donor, who came forward to support a Conservative local authority that engaged with that programme. I also pay tribute to the work done by the Liberal Democrat Minister David Laws. He attended Cabinet as the Minister for school standards when the Academies Act 2010, which underpins everything structural that has driven forward academy standards, was implemented under the coalition Government. I was surprised to hear the hon. Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson) disowning the contribution that the Liberal Democrats made, on a cross-party basis, to driving up school standards in England over the years.