Schools Bill What The Heck Happened in the Lords Last Night

DECEMBER 2022: THE SCHOOLS BILL HAS BEEN DROPPED. READ MORE HERE

On July 12th the necessary votes on government amendments to remove clauses 1- 18 took place and were carried. By the end of the evening it appears that the Lords had concluded amendments to Parts 1 and 2 of the Bill and therefore Part 3 onwards will be debated at the next and final session of Report on July 18th.

Peers were mostly pleased that clauses 1 – 18 were being taken AWAY but much less happy that the clauses had not disappeared altogether and altogether disgusted by the fact that some or all of the clauses would be be brought BACK allegedly refreshed and improved AFTER the Schools Bill has left the Lords thus bypassing the line by line scrutiny which is normally afforded to peers with government bills, as well as requiring peers to vote on handing something over to the Commons which they had not even seen.

What peers had wanted – and failed to achieve given the limitations on the unelected second chamber, although pressure might be kept up and might have some effect in another way – was to keep the Schools Bill in the Lords until there had been a final resolution one way or the other on clauses 1 – 18, ie either by their being removed for good, or alternatively that the government would supply the replacement clauses to be properly available for scrutiny.

With regards the Children Not In School Register, which would always be my main focus, the government has already tabled its own amendments which I have unpacked here https://edyourself.wordpress.com/2022/07/11/government-amendments-to-cnis-register-make-it-less-bad/

NB as regards numbering, the CNIS clauses began originally at clause 48 but after Committee stage in the Lords, the Schools Bill was reprinted and an additional clause was added earlier meaning that clause 48 became clause 49. As indicated above, clauses 1 – 18 are being taken away for refurbishment, but the numbering of subsequent clauses will not be affected until after the Bill is reprinted when Report stage is concluded, which I imagine will be on July 19th.

With the usual caveat that this only applies at the time of writing early on July 13th, no date is currently being given for Third Reading in the Lords on the official government Schools Bill web page. I have it on reliable authority that the quickest way for the general public to get updates is to sign up for Parallel Parliament alerts here https://www.parallelparliament.co.uk/bills/2022-23/schools

I have written more about the passage of a bill through parliament here https://edyourself.org/articles/registration.php Recess dates (when Parliament is not sitting) can be found here https://whatson.parliament.uk/nonsittingperiods/

MY WEBSITE LINK https://edyourself.org/articles/registration.php

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