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A flagship piece of education legislation has been dropped after running into opposition in Parliament.
The Schools Bill, which had already been stripped of key elements, will not progress, Education Secretary Gillian Keegan said.
She told MPs that parliamentary time was being focused on measures relating to the economic crisis, but insisted the Government still viewed elements of the Bill as a priority.
The legislation was originally intended to cover issues including school funding, the regulation of academies, tackling truancy, ensuring the welfare of home-educated children and banning unsuitable teachers.
She told MPs the Schools Bill, which has already been gutted during its passage through the Lords, “will not progress”.
The legislation had been due for its third reading in the Lords, but the Government stripped out contentious chunks of the Bill that would have given ministers sweeping powers over autonomous academies.
Confirming the legislation would not progress, Ms Keegan told the Education Select Committee: “Obviously, there’s been a lot of things that we’ve had to focus on, and the need to provide economic stability and tackle the cost of living means that the parliamentary time has definitely been reprioritised on that.
“And we all know that we had to do that because of the pandemic aftershocks but also the war in Ukraine and we’ve needed to support families.
“However, we do remain committed to the objectives, the very many important objectives that underpinned the Bill, and we will be prioritising some aspects of the Bill as well to see what we can do.”
“A lot of the Schools White Paper is being implemented, it didn’t require legislation in many cases,” she said.
She said that a register of children not in school was “definitely a priority” as Committee chairman Robin Walker said he wanted to know how that could now be delivered.
Ms Keegan also said the Government could go “quite a long way to achieving our aims” on reforms to schools funding for England without legislation.
She also said the Government was committed to legislate on protections for faith schools joining multi-academy trusts.
It’s a shame that the sensible and necessary elements of the Bill that we did support have been thrown into the long grass alongside the others
Paul Whiteman, NAHT
Paul Whiteman, general secretary of school leaders’ union NAHT, said: “From the moment the Schools Bill was published it was clear it wasn’t going to be workable. It was inevitable the Government would eventually have to scrap it, and we are pleased to see it won’t go ahead in its current form.
“While this is the right decision, it does reflect the chaos of government over the last 12 months. It’s frustrating that so much of everyone’s time has been spent dealing with this when we could all see its flaws.
“And it’s a shame that the sensible and necessary elements of the Bill that we did support have been thrown into the long grass alongside the others.
“The introduction of a register of children not in school, for example, is something we believe is important to improve safeguarding for children, as is the crackdown on illegal schools. We hope these elements of the Bill won’t be lost entirely.”