One of the best things about being an MP is visiting schools to talk about Parliament and our democracy.

Most recently, for me that has included visits to the outstanding Froxfield Primary, Wooteys Infants and Anstey Juniors in Alton just before Christmas, and the excellent Butts Primary, also in Alton, last week.

East Hampshire has brilliant schools and they get fantastic results: maintained schools at primary, mostly academies at secondary.

Across England, there has been a dramatic improvement in school results. This is down to the dedication of amazing teachers. But they have also been supported by key reforms.

They have included adoption of fundamental approaches like maths mastery and synthetic phonics. What were once innovations have become not just mainstream but mainstay.

And for the academy schools, they have also had additional freedoms over things like staffing and curriculum.

These reforms and these freedoms are now under threat. There is a piece of legislation going through the Commons at the moment called the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill.

It is a ‘Bill in Two Halves’ (which really could, or should, have been two separate pieces of legislation). Most (not quite all) of the first half I support – indeed quite a lot of it develops or builds on work from before the change in government, on things like kinship care and care leavers.

It is the other half that worries me: the ‘Schools’ half.

The government have said they want to even things between academies and other schools by spreading the freedoms that academies have, to all. But the Bill actually does the opposite.

When we debated this at Second Reading last week I said that if the Bill passes in its current form, it wouldn't just undo the reforms of the Michael Gove era but reverse back much further: it would be as if Tony Blair had never been Prime Minister.

The new government have already changed the way OfSted reports, made cuts to the expansion of Cadet units in state schools, and kicked off a ‘review’ of both the curriculum and how exams are done.

This new Bill takes away freedoms for academies on things like hiring staff and pay. They will also no longer be allowed to deviate from the national curriculum.

That could turn out to be the biggest change of all. Bear in mind the majority of secondary schools are academies.

I have cautioned against a temptation to politicise the curriculum, especially in sensitive subjects like history, English literature and RE.

I am really not sure why the government is insistent on pursuing this agenda. There has been a truly dramatic improvement in school results in England compared to other countries since 2011.

As I say, that has been about brilliant teachers supported by key reforms. It seems a terrible shame to put that at risk.