Children, Schools and Families Bill

It is extremely important to change the culture when it comes to co-operation on serious case reviews. I find astounding the suggestion that professionals will hold back, as it is part of their job or their oath to their profession not to do so. As to the confidential aspects, we are talking about redacting and anonymising where appropriate. We are talking about two different cases here, and I question whether we really need to share information about all the functions. It is for the Secretary of State to respond to that point in due course. Let me move on to new clause 10. If it had not been tabled in the first place, we would not be where we are now. Tabling it was therefore an extremely important step. It had already been tabled when, on Second Reading, the Secretary of State said:""The use of physical punishment against any child is wrong; it is outside the law and is not fair to children. I do not think that we should tolerate any use of physical punishment in any school or learning setting in which trusted adults are supposed to be looking after children".—[Official Report, 11 January 2010; Vol. 503, c. 434.]" That resulted in the contact with Sir Roger Singleton, who said in a letter dated 27 January 2010:""I have given this matter some urgent thought and I do think there are issues that warrant further exploration."" If the new clause had not been tabled, we would not have reached our present position. I am very pleased that the Government have asked Sir Roger Singleton to review the use of physical punishment in part-time education and learning settings, but I am worried about the time frame. I accept that it will take some time to view the issue thoroughly, but, not surprisingly, those of us who are concerned about the issue fear that if Sir Roger's response arrives at the end of March, it will not be possible to make much progress. Can the Secretary of State outline a projected timetable? We should bear in mind that teachers are an example of adults in loco parentis. Most teachers are prohibited by law from using corporal punishment, but there appears to be a gap, in that the prohibition does not apply to teachers providing less than 12.5 hours of education a week. Sports coaches, Sunday school teachers, madrassah teachers, youth workers, private foster carers, babysitters, nannies and unmarried partners are also in loco parentis when they have care and control of children. We should bear in mind that physical punishment has already been banned in other voluntary provision, such as early years centres, child-minding, private education and part-time education of 12.5 hours or more a week. Surely there is no justification for failing to protect children in the remaining voluntary settings. Professionals and concerned Muslims, for example, have found it difficult to persuade parents or children to make complaints about the use of physical punishment. As long ago as 2006, the leader of the Muslim Parliament of Great Britain said the Muslim community was in a state of denial over child mistreatment in madrassahs, and that it was an unacceptable dereliction of duty not to protect those children for fear of being accused of cultural insensitivity. The issue has arisen because the concern was expressed by the Muslim Parliament. Madrassahs are estimated to run nearly 1,600 part-time, weekend or evening Islamic schools, teaching as many as 200,000 children overall.