Member

Amendment 196A tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, calls for a report on the demand for, desirability of and potential mechanisms for converting academies back to local authority control. As I stated in Committee, this proposal runs contrary to our policy direction. It is not true, as the noble Baroness asserted, that the direction of travel is against multi-academy trusts. We have made that clear throughout the passage of the Bill. Reopening questions on converting academies to maintained schools risks diverting attention from the urgent task of supporting schools and raising standards for children, where mechanisms for addressing concerns are already in place, so we do not believe that this is the right approach.