Education and Inspections Bill

moved Amendment No. 23: Page 3, leave out line 8. The noble Lord said: In moving Amendment No. 23, I shall speak also to Amendment No. 25. There is a great burden of business before the Committee today and therefore I shall endeavour to be as brief as possible. We have agreed in our deliberations so far, and underlined this understanding, that education is the right of every child. We have referred to the conventions internationally into which we have voluntarily entered as a nation and we have confirmed that we are determined to see our responsibility in respect of those conventions fulfilled. My noble friend the Minister in his very helpful responses to amendments so far put forward has given an undertaking that he will look very closely at an amendment put forward in my name suggesting that education as the right of the child should be there, directly and explicitly, at the beginning of the Bill and on the face of the Bill. If we are so determined that this right should be recognised, it is surely equally incumbent on us to ensure that the means are in place to deliver that right. It is my contention that some of those in most need of education will, almost by definition, be those most in jeopardy in terms of fulfilling that right. The difficulty, as I see it, is that the responsibility for ensuring that right is distributed among a number of different agencies and bodies. If we are to be certain that the right is being fulfilled, there is a great deal to be said for one body having the universal responsibility for ensuring that this right is turned into practice. My amendment proposes that we should give that responsibility to the local education authority. The purpose of Amendment No. 23 is to identify children who are not receiving education in such a way that those informally excluded pupils who remain on the register are also covered. I know, because the Minister has been kind enough to indicate to me in correspondence, that the Government will argue that it is illegal for a child to be informally excluded in such a way. Whether it is legal or illegal, it happens. I believe that because of the pressures on schools at the moment in so many respects, not least from the media, there will be a great deal of temptation, whatever we say, for headmasters and headmistresses in certain circumstances to follow that road. I think that those of us who are concerned about children most in need would say that while we would not question the disruptive potential of such students and the need to protect the interests of the majority of children at school, very often the disruptive child is the one who is most in need of educational support of an appropriate kind. Therefore, this amendment says fairly and squarely, in effect, that it is the responsibility of the local education authority to discover whether children are being excluded in this way and to make sure that arrangements are made. On Amendment No. 25, the force of what I have been trying to argue is, in a sense, even more acute. Young people in custodial care, psychiatric units and immigration and removal centres are frequently very much in need of the right kind of support. I have recently completed nine years as honorary president of the YMCA in England which, I am glad to say, does a great deal of work with young people in custody. I do not think it is an exaggeration to say that all that I have experienced and heard from such programmes repeatedly brings it home that it would be almost amazing if the majority of these young people were not in trouble. They come from such disrupted, damaging home or social circumstances that they are desperately in need of support. Again, I am not arguing that wrongdoing should not be punished, but punishment which does not seek to rehabilitate or to discover the real background to the situation is just a waste of public money, in addition to being singularly unintelligent and unenlightened. Therefore, children in such situations should be absolutely certain that their right to education is being fulfilled. The Minister has been kind enough to indicate to me that the Government’s case is likely to be that all the institutions that I have mentioned have a responsibility in this respect. However, those of us who have dealt on the front line with these situations will know that, whatever the formal responsibilities may be, they are not always being fulfilled. Even when they are, they are too often being fulfilled to a minimal degree to the letter of what is required but not in the spirit of what is required at all. From that standpoint, it is absolutely logical and sensible, if we are serious in our commitment to the right of the child to education and the paramount importance of that, to ensure that the local education authority is charged with overseeing such situations and making sure that whatever is in the rules and regulations is in fact being fulfilled and the education is being provided. I beg to move.