Mr Mark Field: I will not detain the Committee for long as I know we have a lot more business to get on with. I want to speak to amendment 49, which is in my name and those of my hon. Friends the Members for Sevenoaks (Michael Fallon), for Altrincham and Sale West (Mr Brady) and for Epping Forest (Mrs Laing). My hon. Friend the Member for Altrincham and Sale West went into the amendment in great detail, and I agree with every word that he had to say....

Mr. Mark Field (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con): Mr. Mark Field (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con): For many years, successive Governments have assumed that simply tinkering with the structure of education leads to an almost automatic improvement in educational standards, yet the message that is coming loud and clear from schools and colleges is that much of that constant interference does not work....

I appreciate the opportunity to make a brief contribution to the debate. Given the time constraints, I hope that you will forgive me, Mr. Deputy Speaker, if I focus on the aspect of the Bill that is of particular interest to me: home education. Almost exactly one year ago, the Department for Children, Schools and Families launched an independent review of home education by Graham Badman. Fearful that it represented another attempt by the Government to intrude into their lives, two home educating parents from my constituency, Tina Robbins and Helen White, came to meet me in Parliament to see what could be done.

I know well the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Reading, East as it includes the town I was brought up in. I was educated at the local grammar school, Reading school, as I mentioned earlier. John Weeds, the principal, does a fantastic job. When I was there over three decades ago, it opened up a lot of opportunities for a lot of people from relatively deprived backgrounds. I fear that its academic excellence, coupled with the fact that its catchment area is rather broader than it was in the 1970s and early 1980s when I was a pupil, mean that it probably has more children from middle-class, aspirational and professional backgrounds than when I was there. It continues to have fantastic academic results. It is a beacon, and it is rare for it to slip outside the national top 10 state schools for academic results.

Mr. Mark Field (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con): I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr. Stuart) on securing this important debate...