Violent Crime Reduction Bill

My Lords, I speak to my Amendments Nos. 41, 43, 45 and 47. They are all probing amendments and, naturally, I indicate at this stage that I support the government amendments. We had a full debate on these issues in Committee on22 May, at cols. 636 to 642 of the Official Report—which shows how full the discussion was. I return to the fray merely to ask for clarification on two matters. The first issue concerns the safety of staff in schools. Amendments Nos. 43, 45 and 47 require the Secretary of State to issue guidelines on the carrying out of searches. The Minister has tried to assuage me as to why my amendments are not necessary, but I am trying to find out what happens if a member of staff is injured in the course of his or her duty in carrying out a search. In the real world, it is unlikely that a student who carries a knife for the wrong reason will simply say, when challenged by a member of staff, ““Well, yes, fine, Mr Smith””—or Mrs Smith—““here is my knife. Please do take it””. On a day-to-day basis, when implementing the provisions of the Bill, the staff could face serious injury. The Minister says that regulations will lay out best practice from the point of view of training and that insurance policies should therefore pay up. I want to ensure that there is no reason for anything to be paid in compensation, because there should be no injury in the first place. I am trying to find out what discussions the Government have had with teaching unions and head teachers on this matter and how the provisions will be put into effect in such a way that school life is not disrupted and certainly so that teachers are not put at risk. Although I raised these questions in passing on 22 May, I have not received any response over the summer. The second issue I addressed was whether a general search was to be implemented or whether it would be a search specific to an individual category. I asked the Government in Committee what their intentions were. I am certainly content that a head teacher should be able to authorise staff in general to carry out searches; in other words, they should be able to say that all staff are trained, competent and able to carry out searches. However, my concern was whether it was right then to give a general power to search; that is, not only that any member of staff can search but that any member of staff can search any person within the school regardless of whether it was reasonably thought that they could be carrying knives. Amendment No. 41 tries to address that issue. I think the Government, by strengthening the power of search, has clarified the position I was trying to get at in Committee. The Minister said that the term will now be ““suspecting”” rather than ““believing””, and I do not find that substitution objectionable. As I understand it, it is a commonly enough used and understood term in the criminal law and it seems appropriate to use the word ““suspecting”” rather than ““believing”” within the context of these clauses. So by a side wind, by tabling Amendment No. 41, the Government have resolved the concerns that I had in the amendments I tabled both in Committee and on Report. For those reasons, I not only support the government amendments but will not be moving my own amendments when we reach them.