Bridget Phillipson says Tory approach to bill will ‘kill it stone dead’ after PM says opposition more interested in retweets than safeguarding

The Conservatives are making the debate about the children’s wellbeing and schools bill into one about an inquiry into grooming gangs, but they were determined to vote against it anyway because it will restrict the freedom of academies in England.They regard the extension of academies – schools free from local authority control – as one of their main public policy achievements since 2010.

Under the new bill, academies will no longer be able to set pay rates for teachers themselves. They will have to follow the national teacher guidelines for pay and conditions.

Labour’s schools bill is a piece of educational vandalism which will lead to pay cuts for good teachers, ends the vital requirement to turn failing schools over to new management, and will enable local authorities to share out pupils from good schools to prop up poor ones.

We can already see from Wales, where Labour have already implemented this agenda, that the results have been catastrophic, with Welsh school results slumping even as schools in England have climbed the international league tables.

There is much more information that has come to light, this is an evolving picture. There is more that we need to understand and, as a result, it makes sense to do a national inquiry alongside taking forward further steps to help support and protect victims.

This is about new information which is coming forward about the extent of what’s happening and us needing more information to take this forward.

I would like this to be done on a cross-party basis, where we talk about these things, we are able to have policy debates, without people calling each other names.