Children and Young Persons Bill [HL]

I have just been informed that it is the birthday of the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, today. If I may say so, greater love hath no woman than that she lay down her birthday for a Grand Committee. We are delighted that she is with us today. My noble friend Lord Judd is right to say that what he was asking about in respect of Clause 9 is not defined in the Bill, but I can give him almost all the reassurance that he seeks and I hope that I can give him an adequate explanation of one of his concerns; I will look further at a second one. In respect of schools, in Clause 9, we take the word ““school”” to have its normal accepted use, as meaning an educational institution at which a child is a registered pupil. The expression includes all maintained schools, including special schools and maintained nursery schools, non-maintained special schools and independent schools, which includes all academies, city technology colleges and city colleges for technology and the arts. That meets almost all the concerns of my noble friend. On PRUs, my explanation is precisely the one given by the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp. We gave careful consideration to whether pupil referral units should be included. We took the decision that the new provision should not apply to PRUs on the ground that such placements are, by their nature, intended to be temporary. They are specifically organised to provide education for children who would not otherwise receive suitable education because, for example, they have been excluded. We would expect a local authority to take all necessary steps to ensure that children are reintegrated in a mainstream school as soon as possible, which is almost always consistent with their welfare, and we believe that a statutory impediment to such reintegration may work against their welfare. That is why we have not put PRUs in the category of schools. In respect of further education, some children in key stage 4 attend courses at institutions in the FE sector. However, almost all 14 to 16 year-olds in the general population who attend courses at FE colleges will be registered at a school and we have no reason to suppose that the same is not true of looked-after children. The only case that would not be caught by this new restriction on school moves is that of a looked-after child who is moved from one institution to another within the FE sector and who is not a registered pupil at a school. The size of that group is likely to be very small and we believe that we can address those cases through statutory guidance to local authorities, rather than by introducing the additional complexity in the provision that would result from the practical difficulty of identifying with sufficient legal certainty the trigger for the duty in the absence of a common registration system in the FE sector. The guidance would also cover 16 to 18 year-olds, explaining clearly that we expect ““school”” in this context to encompass relevant further education institutions. However, I take my noble friend’s point about the importance of FE and of looked-after children with FE placements being properly catered for. I shall reflect further on his comments before Report.